Special Edition: Trump was Shot
The mother of all bellwether events just happened. What happens next?
I’ve been a police officer since 2016, which means I’ve never experienced a run-of-the-mill election cycle in my career. Every four years, my department prepares for potential civil unrest, riots, and constant political demonstrations.
Whenever I encounter someone needing medical attention, the EMTs ask their standard questions to evaluate the person’s mental state. One of the questions is “who is the president?” It’s a basic question that anyone with normal brain functioning can answer. The answers I’ve heard since becoming a cop have been interesting, but at least they provided proof of mental competence to satisfy the EMTs:
2016 to 2020: “Don’t make me say Trump”
2020 to 2024: “That asshole Biden”
The political temperature in this country has been steadily increasing for a while now. And bit by bit, many have become shockingly comfortable with the idea of just getting a civil war over with already. I have no combat experience, but I’ve run toward active gunfire a few times… It’s not fun. And the friends I have who’ve been to war tell me it’s not much fun either.
But then something happened… The former president and now Republican presidential candidate again, Donald Trump, was shot at a campaign rally in Butler Pennsylvania.
A few hours later, President Biden addressed the nation, calling for people to turn down the political temperature. Some on the fringe left were upset the shooter missed, most of the right was saying Biden was at fault due to his harsh rhetoric over the past few years, and a lot of people in the middle were breathing a massive sigh of relief.
Trump, to his credit, thanked law enforcement and the Secret Service for their efforts to keep him safe after the shooting. He then stated he rewrote his RNC speech to focus more on unity and less on bashing Biden.
Again, the fringe left was upset, most of the right were relishing the idea that finally the left doesn’t have their supposed monopoly on the moral high ground, and the middle breathed a massive sigh of relief.
Last night while working a security contract at a local business, I was asked by one of the employees what I thought would happen for the rest of the election season. I thought about it for a minute and came to this conclusion:
Before Trump got shot, this year was going to be an absolute clown show of political violence, civil unrest, continued demonstrations escalating into riots, and a whole lot of overtime for police departments to pay out.
After Trump got shot, I think we have a chance of this whole process going back to the run-of-the-mill election seasons we had back in the day.
I might be wrong, but here’s my theory. A lot of people have gotten real comfortable with calling for violence on both sides of the aisle. I’ve heard the casual talk of civil war more and more as the election season has dragged on. Part of this, I believe, is because the everyday citizen genuinely doesn’t understand what real violence is anymore.
But on July 13th, 2024 the whole nation got to see real violence taking place in real time. They got to see what could have been the next “shot heard round the world”. And they got to sit and wonder about what could have been had Trump not moved his head a few millimeters at the last millisecond.
An awful thing happened on July 13th. But it showed us a microcosm of nationwide civil war, and I’m willing to hope that many people have snapped out of their little bubbles and now understand what political violence actually looks like.
Outstanding article. It's been an amazing week that has changed the demeanor of a large portion of our society. In this article of Police Wire, the author approaches the actual murder of rally attendees and the attempted political assignation of a presidential candidate with a truly fresh perspective.