Regardless of party affiliation, the citizens of America were faced with a very simple, but not so pleasant question: if one lone young man was on the verge of carrying out his intention and killing the presidential candidate, what could the others expect? The answer will certainly affect who will be the new president of the country.
For "Vreme" from New York
The shootings at Donald Trump during the election rally in Butler united the divided citizens of America in common disbelief, because no one at first believed in what was happening in Pennsylvania. While his supporters watching the rally on the streets of New York thought it was an explosion of fireworks, those who were not in his favor said that the commotion that ensued was part of a pre-prepared script. Only when the news arrived that the attacker and one rally participant were killed, and two people were seriously wounded, did it become clear that it was not a celebration or part of the marketing campaign of the Republicans, but that something happened that will forever mark this country. All the warnings and fears about the outbreak of political violence that can be heard in the past months have become a reality in the United States of America.
The significance of this event was first recognized by the one who was the target of the attackers. As he straightened up behind the lectern with a bloodied head, Trump in a nervous voice searched for his shoes, which fell off when Secret Service members tried to protect him with their bodies. When he finally got his shoes on and stood up, instead of immediately retreating to safety, he raised a clenched fist high in front of the American flag calling supporters to fight, to which the crowd responded with a chorus of America's name. Regardless of who wins the November election, this image will remain etched in the history of this country for all time.
A Clash of Two Worlds
For the first time since the attack on Ronald Reagan, a former or current president found himself in the crosshairs of an assassin, but, unlike the circumstances in which shots were fired outside the Washington Hilton in 1981, the USA is now a deeply polarized country. As much as political leaders, led by President Joseph Biden, call for unity and condemn violence, distrust between supporters of Republicans and Democrats has never been greater, because it is no longer just political disagreements between supporters of the two leading parties, but an open conflict of two worldviews .
This could be clearly seen in the populist messages at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where Donald Trump was officially chosen as the presidential candidate, and Ohio millennial JD Vance, well known for his conservative views, opposition to aid to Ukraine, interventionist politics and globalist economics, became Trump's choice for vice president. Blocked streets, police checkpoints, security barriers, snipers on the roofs, metal detectors at the entrances and a thorough search of all cars, only further highlighted all that was not done before the rally in Pennsylvania. Those security lapses, which will be the subject of an independent investigation and a House hearing by Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, could have cost the Republican leader his life, because no one knows how 15-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks ended up with an AR-150 semi-automatic rifle on the roof of a building far away. only XNUMX meters from the payphone, for which the competent services shift responsibility from one to another. In any case, the investigation will tell who judged that the AGR industrial plant was outside the border of the security zone, so that its security was left to the local police.
It is still not known for certain whether Trump's ear was grazed by a pellet or if he was hit by a piece of teleprompter glass that was shattered by the impact of Crooks' shot. The former president on the "Truth Social" platform explicitly claims that he was wounded by a bullet, members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) refuse to comment on this, although at this moment it is not overly important. In the photo of the famous "New York Times" reporter Doug Mills, a bullet can clearly be seen flying past Trump's head. Thomas Crooks was a member of a shooting club in nearby Jefferson Hills, and the day before the assassination he spent practicing at the range, so the Republican leader escaped death by mere by chance or, as he says, "thanks to God". Therefore, the FBI and the Ministry of Justice are officially treating the whole case as an "assassination attempt" and an act of "domestic terrorism".
The semi-automatic rifle itself, with a magazine capacity of eight to thirty rounds, which is regulated differently by each state, and which can be purchased with a driver's license at any well-stocked sporting goods or hunting store, was owned by Crooks' father, while the young man got a box of ammunition and a ladder before the rally. He came to the meeting in his "Hyundai Sonata", but apparently someone soon noticed his suspicious loitering in the parking lot of the industrial plant and called the local station in Butler. Two police officers arrived and found Crooks on the roof of a low-rise industrial building. At the moment when Trump began his speech, some visitors approached the building and pointed to the policemen with a hand at a man who was crawling on the roof. When one of them climbed the ladder, the young man pointed a weapon at him, the officer jumped back, after which they heard eight shots from Crooks, and then sniper fire from members of the Secret Service, who killed the attacker. In the immediate vicinity, Crooks' car was found with an explosive device connected to a trigger on his body, which he apparently failed to activate.
COMMON CALL FOR UNITY
His schoolmates describe him as a lonely, unpopular boy who was often exposed to teasing, taunting and insults that young people of his age are not spared even in American schools where, by the way, any kind of peer violence is not tolerated. Despite declaring himself a Republican in local government, he once donated a modest $15 to ActBlue, which funds Democratic political campaigns, although his social media posts and cell phone messages do not reveal any the political motives of the attack itself, so the reasons for Crooks' act will probably never be known, just as the intentions of those who recently wanted to kill the judges of the Supreme Court, with a hammer, have not been fully elucidated to the house of the former Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, planned to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer or attacked Congressman Stephen Scalise. If it's any consolation, numerous presidents and candidates for this position have been shot during American history - from Lincoln and McKinley, through Roosevelt and Kennedy, to Wallace and Ford.
It is almost impossible to find someone whose name means something in this country who has not announced an assassination attempt. There were genuinely concerned, sober and calming messages, but there were also those who talked about "lunatics on the extreme left" and directly accused the Democratic Party and the president of encouraging people to use their rhetoric about Trump as a "mortal threat to American democracy" take up arms and prevent the downfall of the nation.
During that time, the president and former president did everything to reduce tensions. Immediately after the shooting, Biden said that "there is no place in America for this kind of violence", calling what happened "sick", while then, in a rare address from the Oval Office, which presidents do only on special occasions, he said that he had to "the political temperature drops" and that those who disagree "are not enemies" of each other. This is the first time that two contenders for the position of president agree on anything, because Trump also called for unification, saying that there are "a lot of good people on the other side." A common concern, but also the same desire to win the trust of the voters, especially since the whole event pushed into the background everything that happened in the previous days in their campaigns and raised the presidential race to a completely new level.
FAILURE IS NOT FORGIVED
Before the assassination attempt, Trump stuck to his tried-and-tested trinity of inflation-immigrants-crime, keeping silent about Biden's disastrous performance during the presidential debate, because the president had already come under fire from the liberal media, members of his own party, individual donors and public figures who had unreservedly supported him in recent years. , so the Republicans didn't have much reason to get involved in that family feud. With due respect to the president and praise for his work so far, their main message was that the current Joseph Biden is not the same man compared to what he was a few months ago and that his thought wanderings and verbal stumbles are not isolated excesses but a permanent mental state of man in serious years. A large number of Democratic supporters have said with brutal honesty that no one cares if anyone works for worthy and good causes, which are the president's main line of defense, if he is unable to win the next election and save the country from the Republicans. America does not forgive failure.
But when everything calms down again, it will be clear that after the debate, Donald Trump tragically got a new boost in the fight for a second term, and that Biden has a much longer and more winding road from that goal. He no longer has only Republican voters against him, but also a section of undecided voters who abhor violence, as well as a growing number of Democrats who doubt his victory.
In any case, there is no longer any disagreement between the two candidates about the necessary unity of the nation, the only thing left is for the voters to say who will be at its head, which will determine the future of the country, due to the diametrically opposite values advocated by the two candidates.
Until the final decision in the election, the citizens of America are left to deal with a very simple, but not so pleasant question: if one lone young man was on the verge of carrying out his intention and killing the presidential candidate, what can the rest expect? That way, they will more easily accept the world they live in, where what looks like the sounds of fireworks is not always a celebration, nor is the blood on someone's face part of marketing, but a reality permeated by political violence with no end in sight.
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