Assassination Attempt

Bullets: At a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday evening, a gunman tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump.

Trump survived the attack. A bullet apparently grazed his ear, bloodying him. Unfortunately, a member of the audience—50-year-old firefighter and father Corey Comperatore who was reportedly shielding the bodies of his family members also in attendance—was killed, and two others were critically injured but look likely to survive.

The gunman was killed immediately by law enforcement snipers.

The authorities have identified him as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. He used what looks like an AR-15 purchased by his father to shoot at Trump from a nearby roof outside the security perimeter, apparently undetected by local police and Secret Service. Nearby onlookers also outside the security perimeter tried to alert police to the existence of the gunman and his rifle, per a BBC interview; police apparently failed to heed the warning. Little is known about the gunman, who seemingly left no manifesto and had very little public online footprint. He appears to have been a registered Republican who had given money to Democratic causes around the time of Joe Biden's inauguration. His mother is a registered Democrat, his father a Libertarian.

A descent into political violence directed toward presidential candidates/former presidents is worrying; the last time this type of thing happened was over 40 years ago, to President Ronald Reagan, when he was shot at in March 1981 by John Hinckley Jr., having just given a speech in Washington, D.C.

Reagan, of course, survived, but the bullet was found by surgeons just inches away from his heart. In Trump's case, the bullet seemingly very narrowly missed his head. The parallels between the two cases are striking.

An Associated Press photographer, Evan Vucci, took the instantly iconic photo of Trump raising his hand, defiant in the face of the attack. Immediately after the shooting, Trump signaled "wait" to his Secret Service agents who had rushed to him, before raising his fist and apparently chanting "FIGHT" to the crowd.

"A lot of people say it's the most iconic photo they've ever seen," Trump told the New York Post last night. "They're right and I didn't die. Usually you have to die to have an iconic picture."

Media response: Some media organizations wrote headlines meant to hedge, when little was known about what had happened and why. CNN's was "Secret Service rushes Trump off stage after he falls at rally," which sounds at first blush like an issue with frailty, not an issue with a gunman raining down bullets. Others struck a weirder tone, appearing to use the "Republicans pounce" trope, like "MAGA responds with outrage after Donald Trump injured at Pennsylvania rally." (Hopefully everyone responded with outrage, since using violence in an attempt to stop a presidential candidate is bad, and not how we resolve conflict.)

"It is a mercy that Donald Trump was not seriously injured by gunfire at an evening campaign rally in Butler, a Pennsylvania city north of Pittsburgh, and a tragedy that at least one person at the rally was killed," wrote the editorial board of The New York Times. "We hope that Mr. Trump recovers quickly and fully." Other editorial boards have, to their credit, struck the same note. But many of these institutions have, for a long time, aired Hitler comparisons and raised alarms about Trump being a fascist; it shouldn't be surprising when such apocalypticism eventually gets taken seriously by crazies. (That said, the gunman's motive is still not known.)

One example: Though Biden has reacted in a classy manner to the Trump news, pulling campaign ads from TV stations for the time being, his campaign X account released this just a few days ago, referencing The Handmaid's Tale and saying quite explicitly that under Trump, this will become reality.

Note that The Handmaid's Tale depicts a theonomic, authoritarian, totalitarian regime where women are forced into slavery, raped, and forced to bear children for the families who own them. This appears to be hyperbole, not what America would be transformed into under Project 2025—a long and, at times, boring policy document issued by a conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, which includes a whole slate of proposals, some favored and others disfavored by Team Trump.

A staffer for Rep. Bennie Thompson (D–Miss.) named Jacqueline Marsaw posted on Facebook immediately following the shooting: "I don't condone violence but please get you some shooting lessons so you don't miss next time oops that wasn't me saying that," which sure sounds like condoning violence. (Marsaw was promptly fired.)

Meanwhile, Dmitri Mehlhorn—a top political adviser to Democratic mega-donor Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn—theorized to reporters less than two hours after the rally "that this 'shooting' was encouraged and maybe even staged so Trump could get the photos and benefit from the backlash," reports Semafor. "Look at the actual shot. Look at the staging. Look at how ready Trump is to rally; this pampered baby shit his pants when an eagle lunged at his food. Look at how quickly Trump protects himself at the expense of others, but showed few of those lifelong instincts in this moment." ("Last night, I sent an email I now regret," Mehlhorn apologized the next day.)

"In a survey conducted last month by the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, 10 percent of respondents agreed that the use of force was justified to prevent Mr. Trump from becoming president, and 7 percent said the use of force was justified to return Mr. Trump to the presidency," writes the Times editorial board.

Put simply: The impulse to cheer or excuse political violence ought to be suppressed. Wishcasting far-fetched conspiracy theories is irresponsible. Attempting to use violence to install or dethrone your preferred politicians is gross always and everywhere; when we tolerate it, we become more like a country relegated to perpetual instability vs. a country with enduring democratic institutions, whose political culture is based on Enlightenment ideals that will—that must—stand the test of time.

Scenes from New York: On Thursday afternoon, parts of Rockaway Beach were closed due to shark sightings, detected by New York City Police Department surveillance drones. Legitimate example of cops doing their jobs well. (I still surfed all weekend, naturally.)

QUICK HITS

• The Republican National Convention kicks off today in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

• A little more about the man killed by bullets meant for Trump: Corey Comperatore was described by some of the firefighters who worked with him as "a great leader." "You couldn't meet a more humble guy," Kip Johnston, the current chief of the fire company, told The New York Times. He raised two daughters, gave to local neighbors in need, and was an avid churchgoer. In the wake of his death, some people have taken to X to dig up unflattering tweets of his; this nasty urge should be resisted. Rest in peace.

• "The search giant's negotiations to buy Wiz, a cybersecurity start-up, for $23 billion, come as the Biden administration has taken a hard line against consolidation in tech and other industries," reports The New York Times.

• "Weak demand in China has meant that the economy is mired in deflation and there's excess production of some goods (especially things which are used to build houses)," reports Bloomberg. "That is pushing down the prices of exports, causing countries in South America to impose tariffs on Chinese steel, and Indonesia and Vietnam and looking into similar actions."

• Britain's new Labour Party prime minister, Keir Starmer, seems well-received in Washington thus far.

• Having a wife who helps you maintain a robust social calendar is nice, actually:

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