Bullets and Ballrooms: An assassination attempt on Donald Trump exposes America’s deepening political fracture

THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL is as grand as ever. The seated president chiselled out of stone looks towards the Washington Monument—an obelisk whose sheer scale can never really be comprehended when you see it in movies—at the far end. In between the two there should be a long rectangular body of water reflecting the memo­rial. It is missing. Instead, there is the dry concrete of the underbed where workers are resurfacing. The next day Donald Trump posts photos of the work on social media stating that it was going to cost $301 million and three years to repair, but he did it in two mil­lion and in one week. From there, the White House is a 20-min­ute walk. Earlier, tourists could go right up to the fence, within throwing distance. Now it is afar, making the presidential residence very small. There are still people there trying to look through a grille. Two women stand with placards. One says: “Re­lease All Epstein Files Now.” The reason the White House has suddenly become so distant has nothing to do with security. The space in between is Lafayette Park and here, too, renovation work is going on. This is by the same contractor who is making a giant ballroom in the East Wing and the New York Times has published a story alleging a bending of rules. Trump makes a post that the fountains there are working for the first time because of him.

The ballroom is Trump’s obsession. He wants it to be his architectural legacy for the White House. Work has stalled due to judicial intervention. The absence of the ballroom has now become, in Trumpian dystopia, the reason why assassination at­tempts happen. On April 25, a little after 8PM, at the Washington Hilton hotel, as Trump is attending the White House Correspon­dents’ Dinner, an annual tradition where the president interacts with the US capital’s media, a gunman charges towards the venue but is tackled by the Secret Service, though not before shots are fired. Trump and his Vice President JD Vance are evacuated. This is the third assassination attempt on him but, for all the faults that his opponents accuse him of, fear is not one of them. He holds a press conference immediately, jokes about it, and is firm that the event will be rescheduled.

Very soon, however, he has linked it to why the ballroom is so necessary. The security of the nation is dependent on it. He posts later, “What happened last night is exactly the reason that our great Military, Secret Service, Law Enforcement and, for different reasons, every President for the last 150 years, have been DEMANDING that a large, safe, and secure Ballroom be built ON THE GROUNDS OF THE WHITE HOUSE”. The case that has led to a judge suspending the construction of the ballroom must be dropped, he demands.

The captured assassin’s name is Cole Allen. He is 31 years old and came all the way from California, which is at the other end of the country. He arrived by train, possibly because it was easier to carry weapons. He booked himself into the hotel the previous day. At 8.40PM, he made a dash to where the dinner was happening. One Secret Service officer who was shot but saved by a bulletproof vest returned fire. Allen was tackled with minor injuries. He was carrying a shotgun and a pistol.

He is thought to be a lone wolf, which means that there was no organisation behind him. Two of Trump’s failed assassins were lone wolves, regular folks who decided that they would kill a president. Something like that would be near impossible in In­dia because ordinary Indians will not be able to get their hands on a gun. And to get shotguns or long-range semi-automatics would be near impossible. The US is different. A few weeks earlier, we are on a drive from New York to Maine and on the way, we stop at a store off the highway called Kittery Trading Post. When it was started in 1938, it was a small shop. An old lady welcomes us with a pleasant smile. It looks like a superstore and there are clothes and other usual shopping goods. Walk up a stair to the first floor and it is a different story. There are racks on which hundreds of guns of every variety from small revolvers to carbines are arrayed. You can take them, hold them and buy them just like you would anything else. Any American citizen can. In this vast garden of arms, mothers walk with little babies on trolleys, young boys and girls stroll nearby as if it is the most normal thing in the world. A gun, of whatever variety one wants, is easily available for any American and hence lone wolves are ambitious enough to target presidents. They have succeeded in the past, going all the way to Abraham Lincoln. Ronald Reagan and Trump were both shot and wounded, but survived.

IT IS NOT JUST that one can buy guns like a box of breakfast cereals but there are gun ranges everywhere within a short driving distance where one can go and get training. There are beginner, intermediate and advanced courses for shooting. An Urban Carbine 1 course of a shooting range advertises that it takes someone who has used rifles earlier “to an entirely new level of excitement.” The Urban Carbine 2 course “will give you the blue­prints to handle real-life situations that may arise.” The Urban Carbine 3 course is “for students wishing to push themselves and their carbines to the limits.” It wasn’t hard for the assassin who shot Trump through the ear to train himself.

Just before the attack, an email was sent by Allen to family and friends, a manifesto of sorts explaining why he was doing it: “I am a citizen of the United States of America. What my representatives do reflects on me. And I am no longer willing to permit a pedo­phile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes. (Well, to be completely honest, I was no longer willing a long time ago, but this is the first real opportunity I've had to do something about it.)”

An Uber driver in Washington points to a road and says that “Biden built this”, while all that Trump does is add his name to buildings. He calls supporters of Trump squareheads and sneers at the absurdity of having lifelong diplomats twiddling their thumbs while he sends “two Jews”, his son-in-law and friend, to negotiate with Iran, a Muslim theocracy. Democrats take Trump’s name with a mixture of revulsion and condescension. But you meet a Republican supporter, and for him all the inexplicable soundbites and behavioural traits of Trump are an act. To deal with the leadership of a country like Iran, giving the impression of deliberate chaos is strategy.

Virginia is a state next door to the district of Columbia, with people along the border towns commuting to work to the capital, Washington DC. The day we are there, a referen­dum is being held to change the constituency layouts so that the Democratic Party will get four more seats when the November midterm elections to Congress happen. This is in response to something Trump initiated with Texas redrawing its constituencies to get five more seats for the Republicans. The term for this is gerrymandering. It is an obvious tampering with democracy, but the US no longer cares. Political norms are being buried by the day and November is that great showdown when Trump might get emasculated, according to polls which predict a big Democratic victory. It is a thread on which half the country is hanging.

The results of the Virginia referendum come up. It is yes 51 per cent to 49. Trump says the elections were rigged because mail-in ballots poured in at the last minute changing the outcome. He calls for the passing of a law that would impact mail-in ballots. Soon, Florida, a Republican state, plans to change its constituency map.

Even as such frenetic manoeuvrings go on, the ballroom is never far behind. A group of senators brings in a bill authorising $400 million to finance the ballroom, the rationale being secu­rity for events. The Department of Justice makes a court filing asking for the ballroom construction to be renewed because it is necessary for the president’s safety. Who could have predicted two years ago that one of the fallouts of an assassination attempt on the president of the most powerful nation would be to somehow get a ballroom constructed? Drive from Washington to Virginia and on the right, at one point, you see the Donald J Trump and John F Kennedy Memorial Centre. It is the premier venue for art and culture of the capital. It used to be just the Kennedy Centre, but then Trump personally took charge of it and inserted his name. The artists stopped coming to play there and he announced it would be shut down for two years for renovations. The reflect­ing pool of the Lincoln Memorial, the park outside the White House, the East Wing where the ballroom's construction is stalled, a lot of renovation and rebuilding is happening, but they never seem to get over.