The photo went viral. It shows a combative Donald Trump leaving the stage of the political rally in Pennsylvania, where he was targeted on Saturday by a sniper, exfiltrated by his bodyguards, his fist in the air, his face marked by a trickle of blood.
With a furrowed brow, the former president called on his supporters at that precise moment to keep up the fight, exhorting them three times to “fight, fight, fight.”
In a dark, tense and chaotic election campaign, the attempted assassination of the former president by a young 20-year-old Republican voter, shot dead by law enforcement and identified early Sunday by the FBI as a man from the region where the political meeting was being held, has confirmed the instability and great uncertainty that the presidential campaign has entered for several weeks. And four months before the election, it could also change its trajectory, by now increasing the support of the populist who, through these gunshots, has become the victim of a political violence that he himself has ironically been stirring up for years.
“By surviving an assassination attempt, you become a martyr and you benefit from a wave of public sympathy,” Douglas Brinkley, a historian of the American presidency and professor at Rice University, summed up in the heat of the moment, quoted by the Washington Post Sunday. “There is something in the American spirit that loves to see strength and courage expressed under pressure, and the fact that Trump decided to raise his fist high in the air (as he left the stage) will certainly become a new symbol” of this campaign, he added.
The reactions of his relatives
Donald Trump’s entourage was quick to capitalize on the photo, quickly spreading it on social networks in the wake of the assassination attempt, accompanied by combative or esoteric messages. “He will not stop fighting to save America,” wrote his son Donald Trump Jr. on the X network. “He is the fighter that America needs,” added his brother Eric Trump. “God protected President Trump,” wrote Florida Senator Marco Rubio, a politician regularly named as a possible running mate for Donald Trump, under the image.
“Grateful for Donald Trump’s sacrifice. Grateful that God protected him,” commented former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, while conservative activist and staunch supporter of the Republican candidate Candace Owens asserted in a strong image that “the election is over” and that Donald Trump will be the next “president of the United States.”
The man is politically formidable in the posture of victim and martyr, as he has demonstrated for months in the wake of the numerous criminal accusations and even convictions by the courts that have fallen on him, in the aftermath of his defeat, for his attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 vote and the cover-up by fraud of an adulterous relationship with a porn actress. The attempted murder that cut short his speech on Saturday in the small town of Butler, north of Pittsburgh, could create a new wind of sympathy for the politician with autocratic and anti-democratic overtones, as it has done for other figures on the American political scene.
Assassination Attempts in American History
In March 1981, this was what Republican Ronald Reagan took advantage of when he was targeted by a crazed gunman, John Hinckley Jr., who tried to assassinate him on a Washington street as the newly elected president was walking towards his limousine. In the days that followed, the popularity rating of the former Hollywood star and staunch conservative, already at 60%, rose by eight points. A wave of sympathy for Reagan, who was injured in the attack, which nevertheless came early in his presidency and whose impact on his re-election, four years later, in 1984, remains difficult to assess. The man’s image was partly tarnished thereafter due to the difficult economic conditions of the time. He would, however, be re-elected for a second term until 1989.
Conversely, the assassination attempt on Teddy Roosevelt in October 1912 by a German immigrant named John Schrank, as the former president was preparing to deliver a speech in Milwaukee, did not have the same effect. By chance and coincidence, it is in this city that the Republicans will hold their national convention starting Monday to celebrate Donald Trump’s candidacy for the presidential election next November.
Roosevelt then sought to reconquer the White House left in the hands of another Republican four years earlier: William Howard Taft. In vain. It was finally the Democrat Woodrow Wilson who won the presidential election that year.
Teddy Roosevelt, however, faced the attack with remarkable aplomb, delivering his speech despite everything with a revolver bullet embedded in his chest, its course, now non-lethal, slowed by his glasses case and the 50 pages of his speech, which he had in his pocket.
A historical story recalled to the good memory of the present by the former Republican strategist and critic Donald Trump’s Eric Schmidt, who, on X, recalled Saturday evening that “the political consequences of this assassination attempt will be immense, and they will benefit Donald Trump, who has just reacted after being (the target of a shooter) in exactly the same way as Teddy Roosevelt.”
On Sunday morning, on his social network, Donald Trump assured that “God” was the only one “to prevent the unthinkable from happening” and thanked “everyone for (the) thoughts and (the) prayers yesterday”. He also called on his troops to “not be afraid” and to “remain resilient” in their faith and mobilized against wickedness. “Right now, the most important thing is that we are united and show our true character as Americans, by remaining strong, determined and not allowing evil to win,” he added.