Trump assassination attempt strengthens his appeal

As former American President Donald Trump, 78, walked away from an attempted assassination on 13 July, the world is asking whether this will make him a shoo-in in the upcoming presidential race against incumbent President Joe Biden.

The presumptive Republican candidate, Trump, narrowly escaped the assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when a sniper’s bullet shot from a nearby rooftop grazed his right ear. The suspected gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, was killed by secret service agents.

In a tight presidential vote come November against the 81-year-old Biden, experts expect the shooting – in which one person was tragically killed – to boost Trump’s electoral support, at least in the short term. It will distract from his legal problems. This is especially so as pressure mounts on Biden to bow out of the race due to his age and mental health, only compounded by his abysmal performance in the presidential debate on 27 June 2024.

Former United States (US) diplomat and writer J Brooks Spector told the SA Jewish Report, “At this point, three-and-a-half months before the election itself, it’s still hard to tell just how this is all going to shake out. My sense of it is that Donald Trump’s attempted assassination is going to solidify his support among Republicans generally. There’s nothing that Trump likes more than to be both a martyr and a victim, at least in public affairs and public relations terms. I’m not entirely convinced it’s going to do very much to sway Democratic Party-inclined voters, and I don’t know whether it will have much to do with changing the minds of that small group in the middle, the so-called ‘independent voters’, who tend overall to be more interested in policy than person. But it really is a little bit early to tell.”

Spector said that the tone adopted at the Republican nominating convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that began on 15 July will matter. “How will Republican office holders play the shooting? Do they try to make this sound like it’s an effort to draw the country together, to unite, or do they stay with their older style of invective, finger-pointing, and blame-casting? That probably won’t endear them to many independent or Democratic Party voters. Offers and efforts to unify may have more of an effect, and we’ll see how that goes. But then there’s always the imponderable of events that we can’t predict, which may or may not occur in the next several months both internationally and domestically.”

John Stremlau, honorary professor of international relations at the University of the Witwatersrand, also warned about the dangers of premature predictions. “Forecasting US election results this far out is fool’s play. Did you expect that a Government of National Unity would emerge [in South Africa] five months before? Did you expect the MK [uMkhonto we Sizwe] party would end third?”

“In the short run,” Stremlau said, “we will witness the coronation of Trump at the Republication convention. We have the iconic picture of a bloody Trump raising his fist in defiance. He has the wind at his back now. He’ll probably get a bump in the polls from this attempted assassination and go into the convention on a roll.”

Stremlau said the real question is whether Biden will step aside, initiating a scramble by the Democrats to find the best person to defeat Trump. With just five weeks before the Democratic nomination convention in Chicago, Illinois, this is a decision that will need to be made soon. But, unless Biden drops out of the race, he said, “we’ll get a Trump presidency”.

“In the debate, Trump lied, but he presented himself as the ‘can-do’ guy next to poor old Joe Biden,” said Stremlau. “Remember, Nelson Mandela was 82, and wisely decided not to run for a second term. Biden would be 82 next year. It’s hard to see him as president for four years, and doing it effectively.”

As serious questions are being asked about the lapses in the Trump campaign’s security arrangements, world leaders offered their condemnation of the attack.

Among them was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In a video message, Netanyahu said he was shocked by the “horrific” attempt on Trump’s life. “This wasn’t just an attack on Donald Trump. This was an attack on a candidate for the presidency of the United States. This was an attack on America. It was an attack on democracy. It was an attack on all the democracies. On behalf of myself, my family, the government, and people of Israel, we wish President Trump a speedy recovery, continued good health, and continued strength.”

In spite of the support that Biden has given to Netanyahu since the terror attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023 and Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, many feel that the Israeli prime minister would probably favour a second Trump presidency. “It would be a dream for Netanyahu,” Stremlau said. “He’d be delighted to have Trump back in the White House.”

Whether this would be good for Israel and the Jewish people is an entirely different question.