Pure Political Cocaine
Reflections on the Trump assassination attempt
Like many Americans, I was glued to the TV last night, watching reports about the attempt on Donald Trump’s life. The coverage was quite repetitive at first, because information on exactly what happened was limited. It revolved around a seemingly endless video loop of the moment that the bullet grazed Trump’s ear and smashed into the skull of the person sitting behind him in the bleachers.
Watching this, I was immediately struck by Trump’s presence of mind. Most of us would be so shaken that we would want to get away as soon as possible. But Trump was able to turn a terrifying moment into a once-in-a-lifetime political opportunity. With blood running down his cheek, the former president shouted to the crowd, defiantly boxing the air, and the crowd responded with a chorus of “USA! USA!”
It was pure political cocaine.
Later that evening, the news channels wheeled out pundits to comment on what had happened. Republicans and Democrats alike offered variations on two themes: “Americans need to unite.” and “We need to tone down the violent political rhetoric.”
These are platitudes. They’re hard to object to, but they’re nevertheless misleading or vacuous. Unity isn’t always a good thing. Whether it’s constructive or destructive depends on what it is that people are uniting around. Without specifying this, calls for unity are contentless. Even Hitler preached unity for the German people….unity behind him.
In contrast, devout claims that we need to tone down violent political rhetoric aren’t so much contentless as they are misleading. They imply that violent speech is evenly distributed across the political spectrum—that Democrats and Republicans are equally at fault. But Trump and his allies are the worst offenders, by a long shot.
Now, back to the assassination attempt. I mentioned that when Trump rose to his feet, and while he was being escorted to his vehicle, aggressively pumping his fist, he yelled something to the crowd. What he yelled was “Fight! Fight! Fight!….”
Who or what was it that Trump wanted his people to fight? It wasn’t the immediate threat—the shooter—who was already dispatched by law enforcement. The enemy that Trump urged his people to fight are his political opponents. Given the context, it’s not difficult to connect the dots. I take his raw message to be “Fight the Democrats, who tried to kill me.” And true to form, while the talking heads on TV were urging Americans to eschew violent speech, social media was seething with it. It wasn’t just obscure MAGA cranks either. J. D. Vance, who is a likely pick for Trump’s running mate, was quick off the mark. He wrote on X that the rhetoric of the Biden campaign “led directly” to President Trump’s attempted assassination.
There are two other elements that I believe will increasingly come into focus in Republican discourse in the days and weeks to come. The first pertains to the quasi-religious dimension of the MAGA movement. This is typical of a certain sort of authoritarian populism, for reasons that I’ve already described in a previous posting.
Trump’s survival of the assassination lends itself to the narrative that he is God’s chosen. A witness who was interviewed on CNN last night said that Trump turned his head to the left a split second before the bullet was fired. If he hadn’t done this, at exactly that time, he would certainly have been killed. I believe that Republicans will tout his survival as an act of divine intervention. God shielded Trump from the bullet so that he could complete his divinely appointed mission of making America great again.1
The former president has already begun leaning into this narrative. He wrote on X this morning:
Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers yesterday, as it was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening. We will FEAR NOT, but instead remain resilient and Defiant in the face of Wickedness.
In the posting where I offered a Freudian take on the MAGA movement, I discussed why it’s psychologically necessary for the authoritarian leader’s followers to perceive him as powerful—a superhero— the omnipotent Father—the ultimate strongman. Trump understands this need, and cultivates this image, contrasting his strength with Biden’s accelerating frailty. His behavior in the aftermath of the assassination attempt was a stellar performance of masculine strength. Neither bowed nor broken by his brush with death, thrusting his fist in the air and bellowing “Fight! Fight! Fight!”, Trump sealed his image as the virile leader, the one man who is up to the mighty task of making America great again, in contrast to what he described as the “broken down” Joe Biden.
Let’s watch the RNC tomorrow and see what happens.
Update, 7/14/24: This prediction has already been amply confirmed. And Trump is continuing to promote the religious narrative. See: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/14/trump-shooting-megachurch-sermons-00168146?utm_source=The+Forward+Association&utm_campaign=07315447e8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_12_01_04_25_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-1323d6a1cf-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D,
"Political cocaine" is a gaslighting concept no matter which way you slice it, but perhaps a valid threat to any notion of a civil society is worth the flame? It is inherently a dangerous, volatile observation, but David is right to coin it sociologically.
David, I typically enjoy reading your stuff—especially as it pertains to the divisive rhetoric of race—but this essay feels awfully leaning a particular way (and your biases are blatantly evident).
When it comes to messages about uniting and toning down the rhetoric, you say “These are platitudes. They’re hard to object to, but they’re nevertheless misleading or vacuous. Unity isn’t always a good thing.” Says who? You? Just because you think they are vacuous and misleading platitudes?
You also say “ They imply that violent speech is evenly distributed across the political spectrum—that Democrats and Republicans are equally at fault. But Trump and his allies are the worst offenders, by a long shot.” Can you provide empirical support for this, at minimum? You should hop on social media (such as TikTok) once in a while to say how progressive left-leaning folks talk about, for example, the archetypal “straight white male” and anyone else they racialize as white.
I’ll likely be unfollowing your work for a while, which is a shame since your thoughts on the divisive rhetoric of race is fascinating. But I think an essay such as this one is more a part of the problem than any kind of way of addressing the divisiveness (and honestly a bit intellectually lazy). And this is coming from a lifelong Democrat who still can’t see himself voting for Trump in the Fall.