Just like a passing car crash, you can’t help rubbernecking; the attempted assassination of Donald Trump has already become the most iconic few seconds of our time.
Beginning with the firecracker sound of gunfire, the scene on the podium at Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday evening dissolved into chaos as Trump was dragged to the ground by his security people, who then tried to move him off the stage after the words “shooter down” were heard.
What happened then will go down in the blood-soaked pages of American political history as either the most cynical attempt at crowd manipulation, the smartest piece of political opportunism or the most heroic act of defiance by any leader in the face of extreme danger — depending on which side of the Trump fence you stand.
Trump yelled, “Let me get my shoes,” then shouted “Wait a minute” three times as his security team tried to drag him off the stage.
The former president then looked up, raised a clenched fist and shouted at the crowd, “Fight, fight, fight.”
There have been four political assassinations and now three further attempts in the United States in my lifetime, but Trump’s response was unique.
It was as if Jackie Kennedy took time to look at the cameras and do her hair as she scrambled out of the back seat following the 1963 assassination of her husband in Dallas, Texas. While Jackie was terrified, Trump was furious but not so mad that he lost control of his sense of theatre. And he got what he wanted.
The crowd responded to his raised fist with their own, and the chant “USA, USA, USA” gathered speed and power like a steam train moving out of the station.
To me, that was the ugliest and most fearful part of the whole scenario. A terrifying and shameful moment of a country succumbing to hatred and violence was turned into chest-thumping national pride. At that moment, Trump was canonised by his supporters and by far-right warriors across the world as a heroic defender of the thing he has been tirelessly dismantling: democracy.
What happens in the remaining four months of the US election campaign is up in the air — floating like the Stars and Stripes above Trump’s head in the now iconic photo of his blood-streaked defiance. Many people are saying that the failed attempt to remove Trump from the scene virtually guaranteed his win.
But in a situation as volatile as American politics, nothing is guaranteed — certainly not reason or a clear democratic process.
In the US right now, democracy is not a civilised contest of ideas but a cage fight with flags and guns.
You might ask why this matters to us in Australia.
Well, if the US wasn’t the richest and most powerful country in the world, it would just be another developing country at war with itself as it tries to emerge from colonialism.
But it’s not, even though it seems to behave like one. The old adage “When America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold” still stands.
You might also ask what we can do here in Australia. The most important thing we can do is remain vigilant. The creep away from the centre to the extreme right is happening here, too, fuelled by the echo chambers of social media and a smouldering anti-woke right-wing media. There are plenty of flag-wavers ready to fan the flames.
But the burning question remains: what happened to Donald’s shoes? Just like American politics — it’s anybody’s guess.
John Lewis is a former journalist at The News.
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