Small twists, large turns, and 2.5cm gap that stands between democracy and anarchy
We may never now how – or how many – different scenarios might have followed the attempted assassination of Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump – but it’s important we make the most of this lucky break, writes David Fagan.
Just 0.02%. A tiny, tiny proportion but the degree of error or fortune that spared both Donald Trump and the world facing an entirely different outlook this week.
That tiny proportion empowers a defiant Trump to continue to face down the forces that a large, large proportion of Americans think are arraigned against him. And them.
If the shot fired by Thomas Crooks had been that 0.02% more accurate (just 2.5 cm over a 130 metre trajectory) Donald Trump would be yet another victim of America’s gun violence, the sixth former, serving or aspiring President to be felled by a bullet. He was a mere flick of the head from joining them and just one of a predicted 20,000 US citizens likely to die by gun violence this year.
And in that case, the defiance would be someone else’s to own. Or perhaps in the possession of the same angry mobs that tore through Washington’s Capitol Building on the now notorious January 6, 2021.
Such is life, its fate shaped by both small twists and large turns.
The image of a bloodied Trump rising, surrounded by guards and stopping to punch the air is the defining image of this decade. Politically, it underwrites his return to the White House. But it also reminds us of the fragility of democracy which, like its candidates, can be so easily felled.
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And even this far removed, it goads our insecurities. If one of the most protected men in the world can be vulnerable to attack, then what chance the rest of us?
The motives of the sole gunman have followed him to his grave but no doubt, his behaviour in the months and years leading up to July 14 will be scrutinised over coming weeks. There will be questioning of how a 20-year-old was able to get his hands on such a powerful weapon (or any weapon at all).
And there will be justifiable questioning of how the security team that should be among the best on the planet either missed or ignored the warning of his lurking at the rear of the Trump rally – just 130 metres from a mark he went so close to securing.
But there are other questions outside this sobering assault. And they go naturally to the state of American democracy, its loss of rational and reasonable debate, the extremity of both its views and the inability to reconcile in the centre.
I’m no fan of Trump but, unlike many of his critics, can’t park the blame for this on him.
Trump is a consequence, not a cause, of the corrosion of political culture. Reasonable Americans, and many we might see as unreasonable, see him as an antidote to all they don’t like about politics. They see themselves as being left behind and Trump as the force to reverse their decline.
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This is amplified by the roomful of mirrors many live in thanks to the social media algorithms that guarantees they only hear what they want to hear (and this is the case for all sides of politics in all parts of the world.)
The view that we live in a world better than it ever has been is easily muffled in a culture of complaint exploited so brilliantly by Trump but now part of the toolkit of every politician aspiring to office.
We don’t hear often enough that technology has made work safer than ever, delivered cures for common diseases, expanded our knowledge of every subject and provided the means to access it.
We don’t hear often enough about how that knowledge has informed us and helped us include vast groups omitted from society for centuries because of their sexual choices, disabilities or neurodivergencies.
We don’t hear often enough about how the same knowledge has better informed us of lives different to our own and blended the aspirations of families across the planet.
But we hear a lot about how all these are matters to be feared. For sure, we live in a time of heightened global tension and justifiable concern over the activities of China, Russia and pretty well every Middle Eastern nation. For sure, we live in a time when environmental degradation threatens the way we now live.
We also live in a time where well-motivated leaders taking advantage of our advances can contain, even if not restrict, the negatives both by celebrating the positives but also by ensuring those among us being left behind are given the chance to catch up.
All we need are the leaders and the motivation. We can only hope this week’s events in a field outside Butler, Pennsylvania focus them on the job to be done. There’s a slim chance but one worth hoping for.
