As I write, there’s a lot that still isn’t known about the assassination attempt – especially about the motivations of the shooter.
Many commentators believe that the events of 13 July in Butler, Pennsylvania, USA, have sealed the deal for the Republican presidential candidate.
The bullet that clipped Donald Trump’s ear, and which so very nearly killed him, will energise his supporters, bring undecideds in his direction, and make his opponents hesitate. The image of his bloodied defiance may win him the election.
Another far-right former leader, Jair Bolsonaro, drew comparisons with the time in September 2018, just a month before polling day, when he was stabbed while campaigning to become president of Brazil. The Washington Post comments: ‘The incident drove public sympathy toward Bolsonaro, another anti-establishment, hard line nationalist like Trump, and swept him into power.’
The power that comes from being the victim of an assassination attempt is similar to the power that gives meaning to nonviolent action for change.
As Barbara Ehrenreich explained many years ago (PN 2662), there is a deep connection between war fever and some of our most profound religious feelings: the awe we feel at sacrifice for the common good.
That respect for sacrifice is also the fundamental value that gives meaning and power to nonviolent action for change.
The noble feelings that self-sacrifice brings out in people are what makes active nonviolence effective in mobilising allies, winning over those who are neutral, and, sometimes, transforming enemies.
Those noble feelings are stirred when someone puts themselves on the line for a cause they believe in – whatever that cause might be.
When loyalist preacher Ian Paisley was sent to prison in Northern Ireland in 1969 for organising an illegal demonstration to block a civil rights march, he was seen as a martyr.
His six weeks in prison formed a powerful springboard enabling him to become an MP in the Westminster parliament the following year.
Shock
Trump has two strong sources of appeal, it seems.
One is that he seems to many people to be a disruptor, someone who’s ‘against the system’.
After Trump’s conviction on 34 felony charges in New York in June, the New York Times held a focus group of 11 swing voters, people who had supported or been open to supporting Democrats Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden at least once in the 2016, 2020 or 2024 presidential elections, and who had backed or considered backing Trump at least once in those years as well.
None of them decisively turned away from Trump after the 34 guilty verdicts.
US political analyst John Ganz pointed out that Trump had already been presenting himself as an outlaw, as a Mafia boss – it’s therefore not surprising people weren’t turned off by his criminal convictions. (Ganz’s insights were highlighted in the New York Times by Thomas B Edsall on 12 June.)
Ganz pointed to one aspect of the NYT focus group in particular, when an African-American operations manager said: ‘You have to remember why Trump is the choice of millions of people. Trump represents a shock to the system. His supporters don’t hold him to the same ethical standards. He’s the antihero, the Soprano, the “Breaking Bad”, the guy who does bad things, who is a bad guy but does them on behalf of the people he represents.’
Three other members of the focus group agreed. A white computer salesman said: ‘And, in 2016, I voted for him for that very reason. Drain the swamp.’ A white female social worker and a white male lawyer added: ‘As did I’; ‘Me, too.’
Trump’s other big source of appeal, according to one analyst at Five Thirty Eight, the US poll watch group, is that many people in the US remember themselves as having done well, economically, under his presidency.
The $2.2 trillion he handed out in 2020 in COVID-19 relief was definitely part of that, with $1,200 cheques to individuals and more for families with children, increased unemployment benefits, grants to university students and financial support for businesses small and large.
In contrast, most people in the US feel they’ve done badly under president Joe Biden, largely because of the Ukraine-related inflation. It’s not entirely irrational to blame Biden, as the Ukraine War might have ended years ago if he had supported a negotiated settlement.