American presidents are no strangers to assassination attempts
Since the founding of the United States, four presidents have been assassinated and several more have been attempted.
MILWAUKEE – This election has already been historic.
Now, after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump last Saturday night, the word “unprecedented” seems inadequate to describe where we find ourselves four months before Election Day.
Our polarization? Sharpened.
Conspiracy theories about the shooting? Whirling.
The blame game? Has begun.
Sometimes shocking events bring the nation together, reinforcing the sense that we are all in this together. When President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981, it was his surgeon, Dr. Joseph Giordano, a liberal Democrat, who bridged partisan lines.
Just before he anesthetized Reagan, he assured him, “Today, Mr. President, we are all Republicans.”
But the instinct that at our core unites us more than it divides us seems to be a muscle we no longer use. Certainly not in the middle of a tumultuous election. Certainly not during an election in which both parties predict catastrophe, even the end of democracy, if the other side wins.
Words of unity before politics resumes
To be clear, there were words of unity, expressions of outrage and promises of prayers after the shooting.
President Joe Biden called Trump late Saturday to express his concerns, apparently the first time the two men have spoken directly since they last competed in 2020. “There is no place for this kind of violence in America,” Biden told reporters. His campaign paused its political ads, most of which portray Trump as a danger to the republic.
On Sunday, Trump also called for national unity in a message on Truth Social.
“This is not an opportunity for politics or strategy or how this is going to turn out,” Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania told CNN, saying he was “just so glad that Donald Trump is going to be OK.”
But political action would soon begin.
Republicans had already arrived in Milwaukee for the national political convention, which starts Monday, at which the definition of partisan politics will be discussed.
Trump’s third consecutive presidential nomination was already assured. Now the dramatic photos of him pumping his fist at the Pennsylvania rally, blood on his face, will undoubtedly be everywhere — the GOP’s portrayal of a leader who cannot be defeated.
On the social media site X, formerly Twitter, thousands of supporters posted a drawing of Trump staring into the direction of an oncoming bullet while God places one hand on his shoulder and blocks the bullet with the other.
Democrats gather for their convention next month in Chicago, a session already roiled by calls from a growing list of Democratic officeholders and donors for Biden to withdraw from the nomination, citing concerns about his mental acuity, strength and energy.
The contrast between Biden’s fragile posture and Trump’s defiant response to being shot—to being shot!—will no doubt be part of the calculations of some Democrats as well.
The elections after January 6
The 2024 elections would shatter all norms.
The rematch between Biden and Trump would be the first contest between a president and a former president in modern times.
If the Democratic nominee turns out to be someone other than Biden, it would mark the first time in modern times that a party has dropped its presumptive nominee in the weeks leading up to the party convention.
These are the first elections in which a major party nominates a person who has been convicted of a crime.
These are the first elections since the storming of the Capitol, following the last on January 6, 2021. It is the greatest challenge to the peaceful transfer of power in the country’s history.
It is the first time in half a century, since 1972, that a major presidential candidate has been hit by a potential assassin’s bullet.
Unprecedented? We were already past that.
