2024 Isn’t Nearly Done With Us

The attempt upon Trump’s life raises the stakes and the risks of more violence heading into the November general election.

Photo by Gene J. Puskar (AP)

I was looking forward to a day off from the news and writing, but alas, the universe had other plans. So I’m dropping a note here to address some of the questions and concerns I’ve seen online, in comments, and from family, friends and colleagues.

I had just gotten through saying that the next big piece of news to come along would finally get us off talking about Biden’s debate performance and calls for him to step down. I didn’t quite expect the story to be an attempted assassination of Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania.

I want to discuss what we know so far about the shooter, what the response from officials from both parties have been, and a Trump bump in the polls. My view is that bump is likely to be temporary and will be mixed in with his expected convention bounce. I don’t think that we are “screwed” by this, as some in my circles have lamented, because Trump is now some kind of martyr. On the contrary, I expect that Trump, being Trump, more likely than not will overplay his hand and squander whatever goodwill he might have gained from it.

Let’s walk through this together.

What we know already about the shooter

When it was clear that the shooter was dead and the immediate danger had passed, my first thought was, “Please don’t let it be a minority / immigrant / trans person.” We know how that would be milked by the right.

Instead, it appears the shooter fit a familiar profile: A young white male armed with an AR-15 style semiautomatic assault rifle. His name was Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20 years old, and he was from a town 40 miles from the rally called Bethel Park, Pennsylvania.

He was also apparently a gun aficionado, as evidenced by the T-shirt he was wearing featuring the “Demolition Ranch” logo. According to writer Robert Evans, that brand is “probably the largest / most monetized gun YouTube media empire.”

And, given this profile, it was not really a surprise to learn that Crooks was also a registered Republican and had voted in the 2022 primary.

But just to confuse things a bit, eight months before he registered as a Republican, Crooks also appears to have donated $15 to a progressive liberal GOTV group, back when he was still 17. But he did so on the day of Biden’s inauguration on January 20, 2021, so who knows what he was thinking.

We have yet to hear from his family as to any possible motive or circumstance.

Given this profile, it will be difficult for Republicans to make the case that a crazed leftist tried to take out their presidential candidate. Crooks was a registered Republican with an assault rifle.

But wait! Why on earth would a radicalized Republican want to assassinate Trump? That makes zero sense, right? It turns out that the idea that a Trump assassination would be somehow beneficial for the right was actually advanced publicly five months ago, according to right-wing watch group Patriot Takes. On Infowars, Alex Jones and a guest spoke openly about how a Trump assassination would be “so much better for us and so much worse for them” because it would lead to retaliatory in-kind assassinations of a “deep state” list that included President Joe Biden. It’s just the kind of insane idea that a young and troubled zealot might attempt.

We may not ever know what motivated Crooks to shoot at Trump. But agitators on the fringe right should not be ruled out. And in any event, we should be renewing calls for banning AR-15 style semiautomatic rifles, requiring background checks and waiting periods, and imposing an age limit of 21 on all purchases. Perhaps Democrats should reintroduce legislation to do all that, call it the “Trump Assault Ban,” and force the GOP to vote against or filibuster it.

What officials are saying

There is a stark contrast between how high level Democratic officials and GOP officials are messaging around the attack. Democratic leaders have universally condemned the action and called for unity, while many in the GOP have sought to exploit the moment for politics and even leveled baseless accusations against Joe Biden.

President Biden was out quickly with a statement:

“I have been briefed on the shooting at Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania. I’m grateful to hear that he’s safe and doing well. I’m praying for him and his family and for all those who were at the rally, as we await further information. Jill and I are grateful to the Secret Service for getting him to safety. There’s no place for this kind of violence in America. We must unite as one nation to condemn it.”

In live remarks, President Biden repeated, “There’s no place in America for this kind of violence. It’s sick. It’s sick. That's one of the reasons why we have to unite this country. You cannot allow for this to be happening. We cannot be like this. We cannot condone this.”

But unity was far from the minds of many in the GOP. Top VP contender JD Vance posted, without evidence or basis,

Today is not just some isolated incident.

The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs.

That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.

It is the height of irony to claim that Biden campaign rhetoric, which has never called for violence, somehow led to an attack, when Trump himself has engaged in non-stop attacks upon his perceived enemies that have led directly to death threats, doxxing, and even judicial gag orders to put a stop to it.

Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) took things even further, calling for the Butler County, PA prosecutor to charge Joe Biden with inciting an assassination. He also claimed, without basis and to inflame his followers, that Joe Biden “sent the orders” for the attack.

Many commentators have already contrasted Biden’s grace and calls for unity to Trump’s callous mocking of the brutal attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband and his open questioning of the attempted kidnapping of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as a “fake deal” at the CPAC gathering in 2022. Among independents and undecided voters, this could become a point of comparison and contrast on the question of character, which voters value as highly as honesty and strength. As the threat of chaos and violence grows, there is a strong case to be made that Biden is the candidate who will turn down the national temperature, while Trump will ignite bloodshed. Voters who are sick of political warfare may see that the Democratic ticket offers the only way out of it.

The dreaded Trump bump

Another popular hot take is that the election will now swing irrevocably to Trump as a martyr and survivor of an assassination attempt. Historically speaking, however, the aftermath of unsuccessful assassination attempts is a mixed bag for candidates.

Ronald Reagan saw an initial surge of support when he was shot. His approval ratings rose some 8 points as the nation rallied to his side. But it was not an election year, and his numbers fell back down sharply in just a few months due to economic issues. It was far enough away from the presidential campaign in 1984 that its impact couldn’t really be measured.

Gerald Ford saw two unsuccessful attempts on his life in 1975. But he went on to lose the election in 1976 to Jimmy Carter.

Going back over a century, Teddy Roosevelt was nearly assassinated, but that didn’t carry him to a victory in his election either. And that attack happened just one month before the 1912 election, and with a bullet actually lodged in his chest.

I suspect that Trump’s base will rally strongly to him, just as we have seen Biden’s base do when he came under attack from the media and the pundits over his debate performance. The GOP at its upcoming convention will seek to portray Trump as hero and a fighter, and now they believe they have a strong narrative and imagery to bolster that effort. We should expect to see Trump’s numbers rise from this, but how much and for how long remains unclear.

I suspect that the race will remain essentially tied once the news cycle moves on. After all, it would be different if Trump had never played the “victim” and “martyr” cards before. But he has been singing that tune for some time, and those who already see him as a hero for enduring attacks were already baked into the numbers. It’s quite possible Trump doesn’t gain a whole lot more as a “victim” today.

I also suspect that Trump and the GOP will overplay this for sympathy. Already, they are trying to raise money on the news, selling digital collector cards showing Trump with his fist raised high after the attack. That may work with his hardcore base, but among people who don’t like either candidate—the so-called double doubters—it might come off as highly inauthentic and crass.

As an example, here is something I received in my inbox today.

Among the double-doubters, many of whom are young minority voters, the claim that “they” tried to kill him when it was actually a Republican white dude with an AR-15 may not land.

I don’t wish to downplay the gravity of what took place. An innocent bystander was killed. And a shooter trying to take out a U.S. presidential candidate hasn’t happened in nearly 50 years. The danger of our country sliding into violence and chaos has now increased considerably.

But there are still around four months to go before the election, so after the shock of what happened has worn off, the bigger question could well be which candidate is more likely to prevent that slide from happening. Everything about a Trump win points to greater civil unrest and disruption.

For the record, Trump remains an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped. We can’t stop saying it in response to bad faith GOP claims that we are actually the ones stoking violence. That is basic Republican gaslighting, and we should pay it no heed.

So, yes, we will stop Trump. But we will do it with ballots, not bullets.