The assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump while he was addressing a rally in Pennsylvania has virtually sealed the Presidential race in the USA but it also raises troubling questions on the state of affairs in the world’s oldest democracy. Violence has no place in politics anywhere in the world but the gun culture that is all-pervasive in America has put paid to such lofty expectations. The direct outcome of the shooting bid on Trump is that he has gained a great deal of sympathy and his election is virtually a done deal. Polls had already been projecting an advantage for Trump after Joe Biden’s disastrous performance in a debate with his predecessor and his increasing number of gaffes, especially on the world stage. His mixing up of names during the recent NATO summit was quite an embarrassment to the US establishment. Democrats who had been seriously contemplating a change of candidate are now at a dead end. Trump appears to be a shoo-in for the presidency after the shooting, and even replacing the candidate is unlikely to help the Democrats. The Republican campaign has gained more momentum with its narrative of Trump being the target of a Leftist conspiracy. However, Democrats have in one voice condemned the attack on Trump and reiterated that there is no place for violence in the nation’s politics.
It is ironic that Trump himself has unequivocally endorsed the Second Amendment guaranteeing the right to bear arms and indirectly backed America’s omnipresent gun culture. His supporters are known to be violent and his style of politics is authoritarian to say the least. The attack on the Capitol by Trump’s supporters after the loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 election is a case in point. Questions will of course be raised on how the Secret Service failed to spot the lone sniper positioned on a roof near the venue of Trump’s rally. Conspiracy theories will abound for a while but in the ultimate analysis it is advantage Trump in the November election.
