The attack on Trump and two lasting images

Former President Donald Trump is surrounded by Secret Service agents at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024. | Evan Vucci/AP

A prediction: Two images will remain from July 2024. The first, an image of genuine pride, was taken by photographer Evan Vucci. He manages to capture dignity, courage and that fighting spirit that the ancient Greeks called Thumosand the special courage that is unique to Americans. It shows Donald Trump, bloodied from an assassin’s bullet that grazed but did not split his head, as he spoke in Butler, Pennsylvania. After being pinned down by Secret Service agents, he stands up, raising a fist in the air as the Old Glory waves defiantly behind him. From the video, we know he yells “Fight! Fight! Fight!” before being taken to the medical care of authorities. (as seen above).

The other picture represents everything that has gone wrong in the politics of the left-wing Democrats in the last decade – at least. It is the cover of the once venerable, but now despicable New Republic. It depicts Donald Trump as Adolf Hitler, and underneath it is written in Germanic script, “American Fascism.” History has no arc, as so-called progressives like to say, but if there is to be a fair portrayal of our times, then this second image will be seen as vile depictions of black Americans or Jews are today – as an instantly recognizable image of a political culture that has gone hopelessly off track.

The complete facts about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump are far from being known, but this much can be said: The attack on Trump took place in a climate of political hatred, which New Republic Cover will remain a lasting symbol. The claim that Donald Trump is a fascist, a Nazi or a wannabe Hitler might seem ridiculous and even funny were it not for the events that gave rise to our first image. Given Mr. Trump’s Jewish grandchildren and his history of unreserved support for Israel – including fulfilling the long-awaited move of the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem – if he were the man with the tiny mustache, the worst Hitler of all time!

In fact, this is all nonsense. There is nothing remotely tyrannical about Donald Trump. We have known this since his first term. When the media, much of the medical community, and our vast bureaucracy were scaring the population about Covid-19, there were a great many politicians who used the pandemic to gain a kind of tyrannical power over American businesses and private lives. They were almost all Democratic officeholders or bureaucrats: Gavin Newsom of California, JB Pritzker of Illinois, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, and Tim Walz of Minnesota were some of the provincial governors who made their historic predecessors seem less intrusive and more honest.

Indeed, if there is a criticism of Donald Trump from his first term, it is that perhaps he should have done more to overrule these petty dictators and their courts full of social workers and neurotic doctors bent on directing the movements of ordinary Americans. But he relied on the federal understanding of our country and let red and blue state governments exercise their authority.

Trump was and is not Hitler or Mussolini. He was not Nero, not Caligula and not Genghis Khan. He was and is not a tyrant at all.

The same goes for all other Republicans holding office anywhere.

But that hasn’t stopped the left and the Democrats from labeling them that way. Given the lack of historical basis, they haven’t opted for Roman, Mongolian, or even Italian labels. They are German through and through. They have labeled Republican presidential candidates since the clearly inoffensive Wendell Wilkie as wannabe Hitlers until they lose or move out of the White House. And for over eighty years, they have talked to enough ignoramuses and ideologues to convince some of them to take such ridiculous claims seriously.

Over the past decade, actual attacks on Republicans have become almost routine, as the left has boasted that it is ready to “beat up Nazis.” A Bernie Bro shot into a field full of Republican congressmen and managed to nearly kill Representative Steve Scalise. There was an assassination attempt on New York Congressman Lee Zeldin. An angry neighbor attacked Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, breaking several of his ribs. An assassination attempt on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was foiled. And that’s without even mentioning the widespread riots of 2016 (after Trump’s election) and especially 2020.

Not only have Democrats failed to condemn this violence forcefully enough, they have also recklessly created a climate in which the mentally ill and criminals find a kind of license to act. They have done nothing to stop the left-wing protests outside the homes of Supreme Court justices, even though this kind of intimidation of our independent judiciary is illegal and the plot to murder Brett Kavanaugh took place two years ago.

These days, nearly every Democratic politician and media figure regularly tells the American people that Donald Trump and the Republicans are “an existential threat” or a “threat to our democracy.” Perhaps even that a victory for them would mean “the end of the election.” Joe Biden’s communications team has Joe regularly tweeting that Trump is a “tyrant” and calling for him to be “shot down the scope.” Democratic Congressman Dan Goldman told talk show host Jen Psaki that Trump is such a threat that he must be “eliminated.”

Of course, from the perspective of a ruling class whose puppet president seems to have cut most of the strings, there is an existential threat to its own ability to stay in charge. A Trump II administration would be much better able to face the onslaught of the deep state, which Joe Biden’s current defenders constantly claim doesn’t exist and doesn’t actually care about things. So don’t worry if the Big Man thinks Zelensky is Putin, Trump is Kamala, and himself is the first black female vice president.

After nearly nine years of demonization, Donald Trump is holding steady in the polls, Joe Biden is barely conscious, and there is no solid replacement for him. An existential threat, in fact. Therefore, there must be enough demonization to justify the pseudo-legal and extra-legal maneuvers associated with legal politics and attempts to “bolster” the election in various swing states. (More on that next week.)

But even that is very different from what some people will hear when Trump is described as an “existential threat” that must be “eliminated.” They may think our own country or their own lives are at stake. And people who believe their lives are at stake do desperate things. The Democrats in power are responsible for what these people might do, especially if they propose stripping President Trump of Secret Service protection, as they did just two months ago. Especially not when the Director of the Secret Service recently denied a request for increased security forces.

In light of the Democrats’ massive legal battle against Donald Trump, such patterns of behavior at the political and administrative level – combined with their rhetoric – will leave many people wondering how serious the consequences of their behavior have been in the past and will be in the future.

President Trump survived his own assassination attempt. But one innocent man died and two were seriously injured. This violence must be held to account by those who committed it, whatever their immediate motivation. But what also needs to be discussed is the behavior of the left and the Democrats and their media representatives, who have used words and actions that dangerous people interpret as a signal to commit violence on their behalf. This must be questioned again and again.

We should hear this warning in every speech. When we hear it, we should realize that New Republic You hold the envelope as if it were a piece of dirt, a symbol of the rhetorical violence that helps generate real political violence, the kind of violence that leaves ordinary Americans who support their candidate dead or wounded.

But we should also see the image of Donald Trump, standing beneath the flag with his fists raised, ready to fight against the forces tearing our country apart. Whatever some may say about Donald Trump, he is not a tyrant and he is not a dictator. He is an American patriot who has served his country faithfully in the office of president. God willing, he will serve it again. Not on behalf of the class that believes it was born to rule. On behalf of ordinary Americans who are tired of being labeled extremists, tired of being told that they are the dangerous ones, even as violence erupts against them and those they represent.

David P. Deavel teaches at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. He is a former Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute and a senior contributor to The Imaginative Conservative. Follow him on X @davidpdeavel.