Images of bloodied, defiant Trump pump up Republican base after shooting
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Former US president Donald Trump being whisked away by Secret Service agents after shots rang out at his Pennsylvania rally on July 13.
PHOTO: AFP
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PENNSYLVANIA – A moment of terrifying political violence at a Pennsylvania rally on July 13 instantly turned into a piece of Donald Trump iconography that is likely to turbocharge his presidential bid.
Images of a defiant Trump – with his fist raised over his head and his bloody right ear,
His supporters, many of whom viewed him as a movement figure and martyr long before the violence on July 13, seized on the photos as a metaphor for the former president’s resiliency.
A bullet pierced the upper part of his right ear, Trump said. The shooter is dead, as is a bystander, according to the Butler County district attorney.
Several vice-presidential hopefuls and senators voiced their support and shared images from the scene, while billionaire Elon Musk posted a message on social media platform X that said: “I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery.”
Mr David Urban, an informal Trump adviser and lobbyist who helped to run his operation in Pennsylvania in 2016, said he expects the shooting to unify Americans behind Trump.
“Donald Trump is a fighter,” Mr Urban said. “That photo will be iconic.”
Political division
The gunfire at the rally speaks to the divisiveness and contentiousness of this rematch of the 2020 presidential contest between Trump and President Joe Biden, as well as a looming sense of political violence that now permeates through the political discourse.
“I think we’re all shocked,” said 22-year-old Cooper Waldron, a registered Republican and Trump supporter from East Peoria, Illinois. “You never expect something like that to happen in an election in the US.”
In a Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll taken in May, half of swing state voters already said they feared violence around the election.
Mr David McCormick, a Republican candidate for the US Senate in Pennsylvania, was at the rally and near Trump when he was shot. Two people sitting behind him at the rally were also shot, according to a person familiar with the matter, bringing the spectre of violence into not just a presidential campaign, but also a down-ballot campaign as well.
Several Republican lawmakers on July 13 pinned blame for the shooting on the rhetoric of their political opponents, peppering social media with fiery statements, and making unsubstantiated claims that Democrats incited the violence.
Prominent Democrats, including President Biden,
“I’m grateful to hear that he’s safe and doing well,” Mr Biden said on July 13. “There’s no place for this kind of violence in America. We must unite as one nation to condemn it.”
Many polls show Trump with a consistent lead over Mr Biden in both national and swing state polling. Mr Biden’s disastrous debate performance in June was considered – by both sides – to have helped Trump’s bid.
In the coming week, Trump is slated to both announce his pick for vice-president and headline the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
A huge chunk of the Trump campaign, including top advisers, were in Milwaukee at the time of shooting. It was unclear how the shooting would affect the security in Milwaukee, where thousands of Republicans are gathering for their once-every-four-years political convention. BLOOMBERG
