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How assassination bid on Trump impacts election

Published : Tuesday, 16 July, 2024 at 12:00 AM  Count : 347
M A Hossain
The attempted assassination of Donald Trump opens a dark new chapter in Americas cursed story of political violence, shaking a nation already deeply estranged during one of the most tense periods of its political history. The targeting of a former president at a campaign rally just days before he accepts the Republican nomination is, by definition, an attack on democracy and the right of each American to choose their leaders.

The presumptive the Grand Old Party (GOP) nominee, Donald Trump was on stage, with supporters as usual behind him in bleachers holding up posters and wearing their Make America Great Again(MAGA) regalia, when shots rang out. Trump flinched, then grabbed the side of his face and disappeared behind his podium as people started to scream and the surreal nature of what was happening began to dawn. The ex-president later said that he felt a bullet rip through the skin of his ear, which poured with blood as he was rushed from the scene. The shots fired by a gunman on a roof outside the perimeter of his rally at Butler, Pennsylvania, came a fraction of an inch from being a lot worse.

While Trump is not currently serving as president, this assassination bid underscores the ever-present threat that always hangs over the office and those who run for it-and especially for those who claim it. President Joe Biden is the 46th president, and four of his predecessors have been killed while in office, most recently John F. Kennedy in 1963. The fact that Trump was attacked ends a 40-year period in which many have assumed that the Secret Services expertise had greatly reduced the potential for such outrages-and will cast a pall that will last for years.

Trumps targeting during a presidential campaign drew comparisons to the assassination of Democratic candidate Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, a blood-soaked year that also saw the killing of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and violence at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which will host the same event this year. But political violence hasn stopped since then. In 2011, then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, was left with brain damage after she was shot in the head at an event in which six people were killed. In 2017, a gunman opened fire at a Republican congressional baseball practice, shooting then-House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and three others. The nation is also still processing the attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters on January 6, 2021.

This shocking developments added another volatile political element to a wild and unpredictable election year that has recently seen Biden-the oldest president in history-fighting to save his nomination after a disastrous debate performance and the conviction of Trump, 78, by a New York jury and his vows to wage a second term of "retribution" if hes reelected. The only appropriate initial reaction to the horror was relief that a contender for the presidency is still alive and mourning for the Trump supporter who was killed while exercising their democratic freedoms at the rally.

Most leaders and political actors from both sides of the aisle quickly sent prayers to Trump and called for calm. Biden, who has spent days trying to shore up his campaign, swung into his role as the nations chief executive after learning of the shooting while he was at mass in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. He released a paper statement and then spoke to the nation on camera. "There is no place in America for this kind of violence-its sick, its sick, its one of the reasons why we have to unite this country. We cannot allow for this to be happening. We cannot be like this. We cannot condone this," Biden said.

In one of the most poignant reactions, Democratic politician- Gabrielle Giffords said in a statement, "Political violence is terrifying. I know." She added: "Im holding former President Trump, and all those affected by todays indefensible act of violence in my heart. Political violence is un-American and is never acceptable-never." Unfortunately, history suggests that violence, while indefensible, is also a quintessential scar on American politics.

As the nation grapples with the aftermath of the shooting, the presidential race has been irrevocably altered. The incident has not only intensified the existing political divide but also cast a shadow over the remaining months of the campaign. With the Republican National Convention on the horizon and Trump poised to leverage his near-martyrdom, the shooting has become a pivotal moment in American political history.

The writer is a contributor


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