If history is any indication, surviving an assassination attempt doesn’t actually have much political benefit, but that doesn’t mean former President Donald Trump had a near-death experience of his own in the final stretch of his third White House bid. It doesn’t stop me from strongly leaning towards it.
President Trump returned to Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday to hold a rally in a battleground state community, where he was shot in the ear by gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks and killed instantly by a Secret Service counter sniper.
The rally is intended to be a moment of victory for the 2024 Republican presidential candidate, symbolizing his perseverance and fighting spirit. Former President Theodore Roosevelt attempted something similar when he was shot during a trip to Milwaukee on October 14, 1912, during the height of the Third Party Movement to regain the presidency.
That night, President Roosevelt had blood on his shirt and what biographer Edmund Morris called “a hole the size of a dime about an inch below and on the right side of his right nipple, which was slowly bleeding.” Despite this, he insisted on giving a speech. He lost the race anyway.
No candidate has made surviving an assassination attempt more of a campaign issue than Mr. Trump.
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More: When Donald Trump returns to Butler, Pennsylvania, there’s one name he’ll never mention: Thomas Crooks
Four days after he was shot, Trump took to the stage at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and declared that he had a story to tell, but that he would only tell it once because it was so shocking.
But President Trump hasn’t stopped talking about the shooting.
President Trump has held at least 51 public events since the shooting, and mentioned the incident in 31 of those events, according to a USA TODAY analysis.
Once considered too harrowing to discuss, the attempt on Trump’s life in Butler became a central aspect of his campaign, mythologized and celebrated by MAGA acolytes. It became part of the legend that was spreading around him.
Images of the shooting, particularly a photo of Trump on stage with his fist raised and blood smeared on his face immediately after being shot, have become part of the iconography of the MAGA movement, appearing on everything from shirts to flags to Christmas decorations. , is reproduced in everything.
Trump’s return to Butler will solidify the story he tells about the shooting, its role in the campaign and its importance to his supporters.
“President Trump looks forward to returning to Butler, Pennsylvania, to honor the victims of that tragic day,” Trump press secretary Caroline Leavitt told USA TODAY. “The willingness of Pennsylvanians to help President Trump return to Butler reflects the strength and resiliency of the American people.”
The story of President Trump’s butler is one of heroism and courage under fire, and despite no public evidence that Democratic rhetoric motivated the shooter, the actual villain who shot him was They are ignored and replaced by political opponents.
President Trump has blamed Democrats for two assassination plots against him, leading to a historic lawsuit against him, two impeachments, and a special counsel investigation into his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia. They claim that there has been an additional level of persecution.
The shooting changes the campaign, but not for long.
Crooks opened fire on President Trump on Saturday, July 13, just two days before the start of the Republican National Convention in Wisconsin, the largest 2024 battleground state.
Trump was already looking strong heading into the convention following his performance in the presidential debate with Joe Biden a few weeks ago.
Opinion polls showed Trump leading Biden in key battleground states, and there were growing calls for the 81-year-old incumbent Democratic president to withdraw from the race.
Surviving the assassination attempt has garnered support around Trump and given his campaign a sense of inevitability. Among the MAGA base, Trump has been elevated to near-martyr status. Many in the crowd at the convention wore bandages around their white ears in solidarity with Trump, who gave his nomination acceptance speech with his ears bandaged.
But within a few days everything changed.
Mr. Biden withdrew from the race on July 21, and Vice President Kamala Harris quickly secured the Democratic nomination. She continues to run a much stronger campaign than Biden, and polls show the race is now essentially a close race.
That Trump has not benefited much politically from his preparedness to die is consistent with historical precedent.
John A. Tules, a political science professor at Georgia’s LaGrange College and author of a book about Alabama Governor George Wallace, who also survived being gunned down while running for president in 1972, said that the only reason he believes he survived the assassination is because “Myth,” he said. The effort helps candidates politically. He noted that Wallace won more states in the Democratic primary before the shooting (four states) than after the shooting (three states).
“There is no evidence beyond a slight fluctuation in the polls after the assassination attempt,” Torres said.
“I don’t think the election is going to go one way or another.”
Like Trump, Roosevelt incorporated his gunfights into his campaign. It didn’t help.
Roosevelt, who was running as a Progressive Party candidate, said in a speech after the shooting that “it takes more than that to kill a bull moose,” referencing the group’s nickname.
Roosevelt left the Republican Party to run against his former ally, President William Howard Taft, but ended up splitting the Republican vote and paving the way for Democrat Woodrow Wilson’s victory.
Wallace was shot on May 17, 1972, leaving the racist then confined to a wheelchair and effectively ending his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, which had already been his goal.
Three presidents eligible for re-election in the past 75 years also survived assassination attempts, but there was no sign that their political fortunes were affected.
On November 1, 1950, two Puerto Rican nationalists attacked Blair House, where President Harry Truman was staying while the White House was being renovated. One was killed and the other captured before they could reach the president.
Historians say there was some talk at the time that the attack might help revive President Truman’s flagging political fortunes. That did not happen, and the incumbent Democratic president did not run for re-election in 1952.
Like other assassination attempt survivors, “his political trajectory didn’t fundamentally change,” said Matthew Dallek, a historian who is writing a book about failed presidential assassination attempts and 20th century political violence. says Mr.
Twenty years later, Gerald Ford became the first sitting president to survive two assassination attempts in September 1975.
A few months later, Ford faced a stiff challenge from Ronald Reagan in the Republican primary. Ford thwarted President Reagan, but lost in the general election to former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, a Democrat.
President Reagan was shot to death after giving a speech at the Washington Hilton on March 30, 1981, making him the last sitting president to survive an assassination attempt.
The shooting appears to have helped Reagan, at least in the short term. His generosity after being shot – telling a surgeon, “I hope you’re all Republicans,” boosted his standing among the public and led to his tax cuts. It is highly likely that this helped push Congress to pass the major economic package that was the mainstay of the package.
However, public goodwill toward Reagan did not help his party, which suffered a crushing defeat in the 1982 Congressional elections during the severe recession. Two years later, a booming economy supported President Reagan’s landslide re-election.
This year’s election is also likely to be decided by other factors.
“Elections are about fundamentals,” said David Head, a historian at the University of Central Florida who studies assassination plots.
Regarding the assassination attempt on President Trump, Head said, “I don’t think the election is going to go one way or the other.”
The story of President Trump’s election campaign
Trump has incorporated the attempt on his life into his broader campaign narrative. Returning to Butler may help him get that message across.
“I could be living a good life right now, and nobody’s going to shoot a gun at me,” President Trump said at an event in Wisconsin on October 1.
A few days ago, President Trump said in Michigan that the only presidents who have “fired on themselves” are “consequential” presidents. “I have many enemies,” he added.
Trump said at a Wisconsin rally in early September that running for president is “a tough life,” adding: “It’s not the easiest thing to do.” You’re going to get shot. ”
Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton, who now regularly criticizes his former boss, called the former president’s response to the Butler shooting “vintage Trump.”
“What he most wants to talk about is President Trump,” Bolton said. “He’s trying to come across as a heroic figure, which may be to some people, but in this case he’s… I’m not making that up,” he added.
cling to strength
Barbara Ress, who worked for Trump as executive vice president of the Trump Organization in the 1980s and 1990s, said he wanted people to think he was “all-powerful.”
Ress said his narrative of the shooting was designed to emphasize his strength, while also emphasizing his constant belief that vast forces were targeting him.
“Whatever he was supposed to get was sympathy, strength and how wonderfully he responded. Look at the world, they’re going after Trump,” Ress said.
Bolton said it would be politically advantageous for Trump to launch attacks as part of a larger conspiracy to get his hands on him, rather than focusing on specific individuals.
Mr. Trump often tells his supporters that their opponents are out to get them, and that they are just getting in the way. Bolton said he links the Butler shooting to “a vast ‘they’ that is after him.”
“It worked out well for Trump…always being the victim,” Bolton said, adding, “It worked out to get him president at least once, and it might work out again.”
Since the shootings analyzed by USA TODAY, President Trump has not mentioned crooks once in 51 public appearances.
Crooks, 20, remains an enigma. FBI Director Christopher Wray described Trump’s would-be assassin as a “loner” who had little interaction with “many people, either in person or digitally.” He liked video games and was “a pretty avid marksman,” Ray said. Mr. Crooks is a registered Republican and has donated $15 to liberal causes.
Rather than focusing on the fraudsters, Trump pointed to Democratic rhetoric.
“I took a bullet for democracy,” Trump said in West Palm Beach on July 26, adding of Democrats, “Maybe I took a bullet because of their rhetoric.” .
Trump supporters rally around him
Many of President Trump’s supporters believe the shootings are part of a pattern of persecution against him. A return to Butler could be a breakthrough moment for them.
Prominent supporters such as Lee Greenwood and Elon Musk open each of Trump’s rallies with the song “God Bless the USA.”
Musk supported Trump on the day of the shooting, sharing a video of him standing up after being punched, pumping his fist and shouting “fight, fight, fight.”
The image and words have become iconic. The crowd at this summer’s Republican National Convention even chanted “fight, fight, fight.”
“I think it’s encouraging for the American people to have a candidate who literally gets shot and then stands up and says, ‘Fight, fight, fight,'” said Rep. Greg Steube, R-Florida. he said. “That’s patriotic. That’s the type of leadership you want.”
(This story has been updated with a link to the live video feed.)
