Islam Times - Trump Assassination Attempt and Shift in US Election Formation

Islam Times - Since the time the news of the shooting at Donald Trump in western Pennsylvania election campaign hit the headlines, the most rattling moments of the US have begun. The shooting is a chilling underscoring of the fragile situation and a blow to the US's chaotic 2024 presidential election— an election that is unlike any other in the history of the country, and now with the failed assassination attempt on Trump, it will become even more ambiguous than before.

Trump assassination attempt opened a new chapter in the deeply polarized political scene of the US. The verbal clashes between the liberals and conservatives have boiled over and various political actors are at each other's throats on social media.

A day before the shooting, Trump became the first former US president to be found guilty when a jury in New York's Manhattan District Court convicted him on all 34 felony counts of falsifying financial and business records to cover up an alleged sexual relationship with a porn star, but now few people look at Trump's conviction and his fans consider him a sacrificer.

Record of assassinations in the US

Trump is on the eve of nomination for the third consecutive time in the Republicans National Convention and has survived an assassination. This assassination is the first in four decades since the failed attempt targeting Ronald Ragan in 1981.

Four former US presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy, were killed by assassins' shots. Kennedy's brother, Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated while campaigning for the Democratic nomination in 1968, and secessionist Alabama Governor George Wallace was paralyzed by an assassin while on the campaign trail in 1972. In 1981, a little more than two months into his presidency, Ronald Reagan was shot and critically wounded outside a Washington hotel, and now Trump has joined the ranks of political figures targeted by assassinations.

At the scene and immediately after the shooting, Trump raised is fist and with a bloody face issued his first message. Less than an hour later, he wrote in his social media account that he will win.

In total, there have been 15 assassination attempts on presidents, presidents-elect, and presidential candidates up to 2008, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Eliminating Biden from the headlines

As the heated news reports hit the headlines, the Democrats are in a state of confusion as the 81-year-old President Joe Biden of now off the media headlines and all eyes are on Trump.

From Abraham Lincoln to John F. Kennedy, the assassination of the presidents in the US, is a part of the history of the country. Trump was neither in power nor seriously injured. Nevertheless, he is now front-page news in the American media, which is what he always wanted.

New election games

With Trump's failed assassination attempt, the 2024 US election campaign now has a new iconic image: Donald Trump, standing with raised fist and blood streaks on his face, with American flag waving in the wind behind him.

The attack in Pennsylvania will now leave a lasting impression on the American minds and will seriously question the security cover at the highest levels of the presidency with magnetic screening, bulletproof limousines and secret service agents. This incident showed that even former presidents are not immune to the violence that can erupt in everyday American life.

After ex-president and his supporters were shattered with shooting in the election campaign, now Trump shows off with a new force and his supporters have more reasons to back a candidate who put himself to so-called danger. Printing T-shirts with a picture of Trump fist or printing paintings with the symbol of Christ next to Trump all indicate new games in the American elections after assassination attempt.

From another aspect, the shooting incident happened on the eve of the Republican National Convention. So, his nomination will be officially announced at a time he really survived death. On this occasion, Trump is welcomed in Milwaukee as a hero, a fighter and even a Messiah by his evangelical fans; as a person who risked his life for his cause.

On the opposite side, Biden over the past two weeks has been in a dead end with fellow Democrats who are afraid that he is too poor for the job due to his old age and back-to-back guffs.

The assassination attempt was so shocking that it immediately overturned much of the cultural and media effort that focused on Trump's negative performance, prompting a sympathetic response from influencers, athletes, and powerful executives. Immediately after Saturday's shooting, Elon Musk supported Trump and wrote in an X post: "The last time America had a candidate this tough was Theodore Roosevelt."

Some of the country's strategists described the shooting the most important moment in the US politics in recent decades, asserting that Trump is on his way to the White House.