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The Assassination Attempt—and America’s Choice
Yuval Levin
July 16, 2024

At first glance, Saturday’s terrifying assassination attempt on Donald Trump seems like an obvious extension of our depressing political drift.  We have grown more divided in this century, we use more militant rhetoric, and political violence has escalated. In the last 15 years, there have been shootings of members of Congress of both parties, a foiled assassination attempt of a Supreme Court justice and his family, a mob storming the Capitol to disrupt the certification of a presidential election, and rising levels of threats against public officials of all sorts. A near assassination of a once and perhaps future president might seem like all too natural a next step. And yet, this moment feels like a sharp break. Maybe because it was by far the highest profile act of domestic political violence in this century, directed at the highest profile figure in our politics, in front of television cameras, that it struck even our cynical culture as a shock. READ MORE

GATESTONE Lawrence Kadish: American History Altered by a Fraction of an Inch Once again, American history has been altered by a fraction of an inch. Donald Trump’s wound could have been catastrophic by such a margin. Teddy Roosevelt survived an assassination attempt when the bullet lodged in a rolled up copy of his speech he had casually stuffed into his breast pocket. Franklin Delano Roosevelt survived an assassination attempt when the gunman’s aim was faulty, killing FDR’s neighboring motorcade passenger, Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, and wounding five others. Ronald Reagan’s bullet wound to the lung from a would-be assassin nearly killed him; he survived by the heroic efforts of emergency room doctors.

TABLET MAG Who Normalized Political Violence in America? Democratic Party officials and media deny that there’s any connection between their inflammatory rhetoric labeling Donald Trump a fascist, would-be dictator, and even Adolf Hitler and the attempt on the 2024 Republican candidate. But media executives must believe Trump supporters have a point or MSNBC wouldn’t have given Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski a 24-hour timeout Monday to put some distance between the shooting and the fare that Morning Joe has been dishing out for nearly a decade. Same with music industry executives who canceled Jack Black’s worldwide music tour after the funnyman’s bandmate told an Australian audience that his birthday wish was “Don’t miss Trump next time.”