For the second time in three weeks, a political event actually mattered. The attempted assassination of Donald Trump, evaded only by a short turn of the head, has created a rare moment of national reflection about the current state of American politics. Whether or not it is a moment that has true historical relevance beyond simply influencing a single election or canonizing a new iconic photo in future school textbooks will be decided by how seriously its lessons are internalized by the public.
First of all, the most noteworthy aspects of this attempted attack are precisely how unsurprising such an extraordinary act was. If one takes the regime’s opposition to Donald Trump seriously and recognizes how weakened, the regime’s hold on political opinion is, then the long expectation has been for some sort of black swan event to emerge to prevent a democratic process from dictating who holds the presidency of the next four years.
Acknowledging this does not require a belief that the shooter himself was some sort of regime asset. The environment for violence has been stoked for years, with every major institution - from the corporate press to the Supreme Court - pushing into the zeitgeist the idea that Donald Trump, a relative political moderate, represented a fascist threat that would destroy all that is sacred in American politics. If one sincerely believes that Trump is a modern Hitler, one has the moral obligation to attempt to kill such a figure if one has the chance.
From such a worldview, doing so would be a true act of righteous self-sacrifice, a rare incident of heroism in value in a time when such qualities are in low supply.
The problem, of course, is the absurdity of this comparison. It is Trump’s allies and supporters that have faced the brunt of prosecutions, not his enemies. It is Trump’s enemies that have actively worked to undermine political norms related to the conduct of elections, legislative procedure, and the treatment of courts. It is Trump’s greatest critics, in both parties, that have advocated for a more muscular America abroad, both via the military and the abuse of the dollar.
Trump’s failings, and there are many, have always been those areas where he most resembles his political critics.
A smarter regime would have been more successful at co-opting Trump’s populist appeal for their own. Instead, their refusal to ever embrace Trump has served to make him a symbol of radical rejection of the ruling class. His immediate response to a bullet tearing a hole in his ear is a reminder of why that is, his bravado and rhetorical patriotism are a constant and striking reminder of how unimpressive the regime’s leaders are and just how much they despise the public they plunder.
This unimpressive nature of the modern regime makes it all the more difficult to discern the true story about Trump’s potential assassination. Government agents have demonstrated they have no problem using assets to terminate pesky political figures. At the same time, it is equally believable that the regime simply lacks the competency to properly protect those they are charged to protect.
As such, it becomes difficult to figure out whether obvious questions, such as how was a young man with a rifle able to take a sniper position at an identified high-priority station, are answered best by incompetency or sinister conspiracy. Just as Trump’s bloodied fist pump illustrates why he inspires so much of America, the image of a female agent charged with his protection cowering behind the former president and struggling with her holster is the perfect illustration of the modern American state.
Thankfully for Americans, the FBI has been charged with doing a thorough investigation into the matter.
Going forward, the question is what lasting impact this brush with death has on the ever-more-likely second Trump Administration.
Going into the well-timed Republican National Convention, Trump has talked about his desire to “unify” the country.
Unity in the hands of most politicians is a word that should send shivers down one’s spine. Political unity means bipartisanship, the triumph of the regime. National unity gave us the New Deal, the Civil Rights Act, the Patriot Act, and the Iraq War, among other disasters. It is wrapped up in the state’s most powerful propaganda, usually some form of paternal patriotism.
If war is the health of the state, political unity has been the instrument for applying the medicine.
It should also give us pause that the closest Trump came to a “unity” moment during his first term was the nation’s response to covid-19, resulting in the canonization of Fauci and prompting the greatest wealth transfer in modern history.
A defense of this moment, however, would highlight that Trump’s response to covid, beyond the economic response, was largely a federalist moment in terms of state action. It was the ones who decried him as an authoritarian fascist who demanded a more robust unleashing of federal power to crush those who demanded medical freedom.
What Trump could mean by “unity” going forward is, however, still an open question. One suggestion he has already made is to drop criminal cases against him.
What national unity could look like is a consolidation of public resentment against the regime that has been so determined to destroy the likely next president.
Already, Trump avoided a major pitfall by announcing J.D. Vance, not a “respectable” neoconservative such as Nikki Haley, as his Vice Presidential nominee, which is a step in the right direction. While some of Vance’s economic views are valid reasons for concern, he does better complement, as Daniel McCarthy has noted, the populist America First agenda that is so anathema to the worst elements of the Republican Party.
Similarly, to the extent that something resembling a substantial platform for Trump’s campaign exists, there is a consistent drumbeat of attacking the administrative state, undermining federal agencies, and even providing greater monetary freedom. It is noteworthy that along with Trump’s newfound appreciation for Bitcoin (or at least, political donations from the industry), the infamous Project 2025 has even suggested the need for considering “alternatives to the Federal Reserve.”
The great value of these reforms is that they are all necessary to striking at what is ultimately the root of the toxic nature of modern politics: the consolidation of power in the hands of a decadent and delusional imperial city. So long as moments of crisis result in political unity, these moments will only serve to continue to fuel the cancer that plagues the nation.
It is quite likely that the attempted assassination of Donald Trump will be viewed as a defining moment in the re-establishment of a Trump Administration and whatever lasting impact on American politics that comes with it. Should Trump’s call for “unity” result in further moderation of his politics, the result could ultimately still provide a win for the regime that either desired his death or was at least disinterested in preventing it.
If, however, it serves as a moment to fuel a Trump Administration that better acts on the themes of his candidacy, then it could achieve something that is truly worth celebrating: a nation better unified as a result of a diminished national government.
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