Trump shooting highlights politics gone wild – Oxford Eagle

By Syd Salter
columnist

If we are the Americans we should be, this week we should stop the vitriol-fueled political exchanges on social media and thank God that the assassination attempt at former President Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, did not result in a state funeral.

It would be naive to claim that politics and violence have not been intertwined in our country’s history.

Throughout our history, there have been presidents who have been killed, injured or shaken by such violence. History has been altered and redirected by these acts.

Either way, this sad incident should serve as a wake-up call to those on both sides of the political aisle who engage in irresponsible and dangerous rhetoric that will inevitably be taken to heart by the mentally ill and misguided.

My first significant memory of the world being bigger than the pine treetops in the distance was the brutal assassination of President John F. Kennedy when I was a young child.

On a Zenith black-and-white television, a grandmother’s daily visit to the fictional town of Oakdale, Illinois, in the soap opera “As the World Turns,” was interrupted by the voice of CBS host Walter Cronkite announcing that the president had been shot and seriously wounded in Dallas, Texas. About 20 minutes later, he announced that Kennedy had died.

My twin sister and I watched live on television as JFK assassin suspect Lee Harvey Oswald was shot in the stomach and killed by strip club owner Jack Ruby at the Dallas police station.

In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis during a city strike, and Bobby Kennedy, the brother of presidential candidate John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in Los Angeles. I was watching these dramas on TV.

Later, as a young father, I watched television footage of the 1981 attack on President Ronald Reagan outside the Washington Hilton and saw the collateral damage inflicted on his staff and security personnel. Though seriously injured, President Reagan survived the attack and continued to serve.

Former President Donald Trump now joins Presidents Reagan and Teddy Roosevelt in the list of American presidents who have been wounded in assassination attempts in 1912. Fortunately, Trump survived, but once again there was collateral damage and innocent people were harmed. President Roosevelt was hit by a bullet but not fatally wounded. He continued speaking for 84 minutes and survived.

This is not the column I was planning to write this week. I was trying to write about the fact that, despite all the drama surrounding a Biden vs. Trump rematch in 2024, neither candidate has a significant lead and the race remains closely contested, even after Biden’s very poor performance in the recent CNN debate.

Even before this indiscretion at the Pennsylvania rally, the 2024 election cycle was already thrown into turmoil and uncertainty by Trump’s protracted legal battles and his post-debate drop in approval ratings against incumbent President Joe Biden.

Biden, 81, has been abandoned by actor George Clooney and several other so-called “elite” Democrats in Biden’s party, who have openly questioned his mental competency. Trump, 78, continues to face legal battles, although the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on presidential immunity may bring him some relief.

In a poll conducted by ABC News/Washington Post/IPSOS on July 11, 67% of people thought Biden should not seek a second term, while in response to a question about how they would bet on horse racing, 47% said they would support Trump and 46% would support Biden if Trump became the candidate. Both candidates have high disapproval ratings, but even after the CNN debate, Trump’s disapproval rating was higher than Biden’s.

With both major parties holding their national conventions in the coming days, an already dramatic election campaign could well become even more dramatic. When Presidents Reagan and TR survived assassination attempts, those events became part of their political brand. Don’t expect the same from Trump.

But the rhetoric in American politics and social media must find a new lease on life. Whether you are left or right, Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, this is not how the American political process should be.

Let us pray for President Trump’s recovery and for our nation to return to mutual respect, civility, and bipartisan commitment to our democratic principles as a republic.

Sid Salter is a syndicated columnist. He can be reached at sidsalter@sidsalter.com.