Driving through Ohio during a Hungarian Conservative US promotion tour, my colleague and I decided to listen to traditional radio for a change, rather than music on Spotify.
As soon as we tuned in, we heard the breaking news: the 45th President of the United States of America had been shot during a campaign stop in Pennsylvania and was swiftly escorted by Secret Service agents to a security vehicle.
Little did we expect then that a Donald Trump, amidst his bid to reclaim the presidency from Joe Biden, would be left with only a minor injury, and the identity of the armed assailant also remained shrouded in official silence at that time.
Yet, one fact remained certain: Donald Trump had narrowly escaped harm, and America could sleep well once again.
But was such an outcome truly evident from the start?
According to my friend Dave Harvilitz, a speaker at NatCon 2024 in Washington, D.C., no. It was only ’just a few millimetres difference between life and death, civil war and hope for the future. America, and the world, just narrowly missed being changed forever’, the former Assistant Secretary for Energy in the Trump Administration summarized what happened.
Indeed, the narrative for the average Trump supporter seems starkly defined: despite effective governance, Trump’s defeat to Joe Biden in 2020 amid controversial circumstances marks a pivotal moment. Trump’s bold defiance against the political establishment, coupled with his relentless pursuit to overturn the election outcome through every possible way, have only raised the stakes.
It is no wonder, but rather sad, that in response, the entrenched political elite retaliated with increasingly aggressive lawfare, leveraging the full arsenal of cancel culture and engaging in incessant character assassination to marginalize Trump for a substantial period of the electoral cycle. And these manoeuvres indeed promised success for quite a long time.
But all that proved to be not enough. As Trump was reinstated on Facebook in January 2023 and he subsequently returned to Twitter (X), under Elon Musk’s stewardship, animosity towards him continued to simmer within a deeply divided America.
Now, rumours have it that Democrats, seeing their master plan fail, may continue to resort to undemocratic ploys such as side-lining Joe Biden, integrating representatives of contemporary pop culture as a strategic lever.
It was all of these antecedents that led to the assassination attempt, triggering speculation:
What if there had been another bullet that found its mark?
Or what if Trump had failed to narrowly evade it by a hair’s breadth?
Thankfully, these are hypotheticals that will remain unanswered. But one cannot help but think of another US President, and the timeless inscription above his statue’s head in Washington, D.C.: ‘In this temple, as in the hearts of the people for whom he preserved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever.’
As the months unfold, the gravity of these words will be felt. Trump’s adversaries must exercise considerable restraint to uphold the integrity of forthcoming electoral processes. Because I agree with David Harvilitz that President Trump’s true character has just been revealed. It turned out that he’s the kind of man who comes under fire, takes a hit, feels the blood—and stands back up, with his fist raised. Obviously, at this point, Biden is no match for him, a President, who lived.
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