Fist of Fury

DONALD TRUMP WILL live off the gangsta moment for the next four months. The epic photograph—fist clenched, blood on his cheek, flag in the background, agents in dark glasses—Hollywood couldn’t have done better. The photo composition’s faint like­ness to the Iwo Jima memorial apart, Trump is now a legitimate “victim” of political violence, not merely its instigator in the eyes of many. Political ads are writing themselves.

Set aside the “convicted felon” story, the “porn star” chroni­cles, the election interference allegations, and brace for the new narrative of persecution and biased prosecution in which the former president will play a non-stop role until November 5, 2024 when voters go to the polls and write the final chapter. Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) supporters are ever more energised for the final day of reckoning.

As if on cue, a Trump-appointed judge in Florida dis­missed the classified documents case against him in which he was accused of illegally retaining top-secret papers after leaving the White House. The judge said the special prosecutor was improperly appointed. If ‘god’ saved Trump from the bullets, his judicial appointees are providing him a legal shield. They are ensuring that the Democratic Party’s ‘lawfare’ against him fails. It has.

Cases are being delayed, thrown out or sent back to lower courts and not always for legally sound rea­sons. Trump is enormously lucky and then some— which other president in recent history got to appoint three Supreme Court justices? Payback is coming in spades. Of the more than 80 charges against him, he has so far been convicted only on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the “hush money” case—the least important of the four cases.

Republicans can feel victory within grasp—Trump was already ahead of President Joe Biden in swing states by a couple of points but a new YouGov poll released after the assassination attempt showed him consolidating his lead by as many as seven points in Arizona and five points in Wisconsin. National polls conducted before the attack still showed a tight race with Trump leading by two to three points. But the momentum is clearly with him and to ensure it stays that way, Trump is changing his message from rant and divide, to calm and unite. Who would have thunk it? How long the transformation will last is anyone’s guess but a miraculous escape can be life-changing.

On Monday, July 15, Trump rode into Milwaukee for the Repub­lican National Convention (RNC) as a fighter and survivor primed for the love and adulation of the faithful. It no longer matters that the man kidnapped, repurposed and reimagined the party in his im­age and made old-style Republicanism irrelevant. No rebel, no cause stands in the way. It seems the “never Trumpers” never existed.

Trump named JD Vance, a first-time Senator from Ohio and a former critic of Trumpism but now fully converted, to be his running mate. It was a smart choice—Vance is young (39), an ex-Marine, articulate, Yale-educated, and connected to Silicon Valley money. He rose to national prominence with Hillbilly Elegy, his 2016 memoir about growing up poor in working-class America. He will be a formidable opponent for Vice President Kamala Harris in the debates. And otherwise.

A Trump-Vance ticket against a Biden-Harris combo is heavi­er. Even Democrats agree. The age factor, the acumen factor and the agility factor all come into play. Republicans will contrast Trump’s raised fist after bullets whizzed by him with Biden’s fumbles, Trump’s relatively coherent message on immigra­tion and no foreign wars against Biden’s inability to complete a thought and a chaotic border. Both candidates ramble and lose track—ideally, they should both be in retirement homes at 78 and 81—but Republicans show more faith in Trump (71 per cent) as their candidate than Democrats do in Biden (33 per cent), accord­ing to an NBC News poll.

Where America and Americans Really Are

Fraught doesn’t begin to describe the state of affairs. The country remains deeply polarised along political, ideological and cul­tural lines. The two sides are so divided and mistrustful of each other that politics as the art of the possible is near-impossible. That 47 per cent of the people consider a civil war likely in their lifetime says it all.

Within minutes of shots being fired at Trump in Butler, Penn­sylvania, the digital world was agog with conspiracy theories, recriminations and flaming anger. Clips of Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, warning Americans about the dangers of a second Trump presidency surfaced. Republicans blamed Biden’s rhetoric (Trump as a threat to democracy) for the attempted assassination. Democrats unleashed their own archive of incendiary Trumpisms.

A Trump-Vance ticket against a Biden-Harris combo is heavier. Even Democrats agree. The age factor, the acumen factor and the agility factor all come into play. Republicans will contrast Trump’s raised fist after bullets whizzed by him with Biden’s fumbles

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But Democrats are in the midst of a massive internal crisis. It’s no secret that party leaders, former and current, are hugely concerned about Biden’s chances come November. The presidential debate last month was an unmitigated disaster. Biden’s frailties were in full view. No spin doctor could obscure what American voters and the world saw. The clamour for Biden to step aside has calmed somewhat in light of the assassination attempt, more because of a realisation that the election is already lost to the iconic image of Trump than an acceptance of the president as the best candidate. Democrats will have their convention in Chicago on August 19-22 but excitement is low.

Biden has adamantly refused to entertain the idea of quitting despite a steady stream of pleas from party leaders who see a dark future where they not only lose the White House but also the Senate and they don’t regain the House. This was not how the Dems had imagined 2024 given the administration’s considerable achievements. But in Biden’s world, it’s the “elites” who are nervous and carping, not the people. He says the polls are wrong and he alone can defeat Trump because he did it once.

Somehow it rings less and less true because the ravages of age are for all to see. Apart from routinely mixing up names of countries and people (Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, calling Trump his vice president, confusing Ukraine with Gaza), the brutal fact is that Biden shows his age in how he walks and talks more than his rival. Voters can see that but his close circle of advisers, which includes First Lady Jill Biden and his son Hunter, is content to project him as a viable candidate even in the face of ex­treme peril. The people around Biden have hidden his infirmities as fake news and the media played along until the debate disaster.

The Biden managers are organising more interviews and press conferences to show he still has his mojo but it might be a case of too little, too late. Democratic candidates in tough House and Senate races are panicking about their prospects. Around 20 have come out publicly to ask Biden to move aside. Many more are said to be kvetching in private but are afraid to speak up because of fear of retaliation from the campaign.

The Existential Election

The two campaigns over the next four months will determine whose story of “America-faces-an-existential-crisis” the voters actually buy. Trump’s version of saving the country from com­munists, leftists, criminals and the flood of illegal immigrants or Biden’s rendering of democracy in danger, Trump as an existential threat and women becoming real-life actors in the Handmaid’s Tale? The abortion issue is the Democrats’ strong­est suit after Trump-appointed conservative justices overturned Roe vs Wade enshrining women’s right to choose. It’s democratic backsliding by another name.

Apart from routinely mixing up names of countries and people, the brutal fact is that Biden shows his age in how he walks and talks more than his rival. Voters can see that but his close circle of advisers is content to project him as a viable candidate

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With Trump himself as a victim of political violence, the Democratic narrative that he presents an existential threat loses some potency. Biden can’t repeat his talking point without invit­ing accusations from Republicans that he is inciting violence. That table has turned. The narrative around January 6 when the US Cap­itol was invaded by Trump supporters now has a twin narrative of July 13 when Trump faced an assassination attempt. It matters little in the big picture that the motives of the assassin are still unclear or that he was a registered Republican.

Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was killed by a police sniper but not before he fatally shot a rally attendee and seriously injured two others. Crooks has been described by friends as socially awkward and a victim of constant bullying at school. He fits the profile of so many American lone wolves who kill so they would be remem­bered after an obscure, friendless, isolated life in a society where you must constantly excel. Unsurprisingly, the whole episode has inspired another round of soul-searching about guns and violence which will end as all others do—with no results.

Secret Service agents and local police are under attack for the security lapses which no doubt were gargantuan. Republicans are hinting Trump’s security was inadequate and some partisans have begun to blame DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) poli­cies of the Secret Service for the failures. A clip of a female agent struggling to holster her gun during the chaos and another of an agent adjusting her dark glasses as she tried to shield Trump have gone viral. The rightwing underworld is rife with accusations of incompetence of DEI hires. Questions and answers will occupy Capitol Hill for weeks to come.

America’s Climate Change

It is against a background of grievance-charged politics that the most powerful democracy is getting ready for national elections in a year of elections all round the world. Political rage has been rising over the last eight years since Trump was elected in 2016. Democrats simply couldn’t believe their star Hillary Clinton lost. Thus began the many battles—Democrats ordered con­gressional hearings, launched investigations and conducted two impeachment proceedings against Trump. Republicans cried foul, called it a “deep state” conspiracy, started counter-investigations and cast doubt on Biden’s victory in 2020. The assault on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 by Trump supporters was the shocking culmination. The world watched in horror but things got worse.

No question that Trump played a major role in fanning the flames with red-hot rhetoric but the Democrats and their leftwing allies were no shrinking violets. The two sides repeatedly clashed and violently, shutting down parts of Portland for almost an entire year. Social justice warriors battled Proud Boys and neither side thought it wise to curtail and meet halfway. Police were either unable or unwilling to curb the protests.

The slow burn of events makes the assassination attempt unsurprising. Both sides now promise to moderate their stance. Biden made an impassioned plea to resolve differences at the ballot (he misspoke and called it battle) box. “The political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated. It is time cool to it down,” he said from the Oval Office.

Trump sees unity and moderation as useful tools to appeal to independent voters. They might turn his way if they find he is indeed a changed man and not a jar of vengeance and vitriol. It will be a great leap forward but no one’s putting money on it.

About The Author

Seema Sirohi

Seema Sirohi is a Washington-based columnist and the author of Friends with Benefits: The India-US Story

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