A few weeks after the first attack on Donald Trump's life - last July - I listened to a Dutch podcast that left a big impression on me. The editor of 'De Correspondent' - an independent journalist platform - worded his concerns and thoughts in a way that resonated with my thoughts. Therefore, I decided to transcribe and translate the podcast/essay and share it below. In the text, I added remarks here and there to correct or extend specific statements, as well as to provide my thoughts. All additions in [brackets and cursive font].
created by AI with a well-defined prompt by edje
Was the attack on Trump shocking? Nope..
source: essay by Rob Wijberg - founder of 'De Correspondent'
The most shocking thing about the attack on Donald Trump [edje: the first one this year] was how unshocking it was. Honestly, were you baffled? I wasn't, at least [edje: I wasn't either].
In a country with more firearms than inhabitants and an average of 57 gun-related murders per day, which is now politically almost as divided as North and South Korea, with one side a Republican sect under the spell of an authoritarian cult leader and the other a Democratic deathbed in the grip of an ailing 81-year-old, in such a country, a political assassination attempt is hardly unthinkable. [edje: by now one of the options has been altered: Biden out, Kamala in]
It is also a tradition: four presidents have survived one, four have not. Attempts were thwarted for nearly all the others.
The attack on Trump is also an 'attack on democracy', as various media phrased it, is undeniable. It must be added: 'on democracy' – or what's left of it. I've argued before that news media should seriously question whether the United States can still be described as a democracy, given how advanced its deterioration is. Since then, the democratic future of the US hasn't become any better.
The American media spectacle that passes by every four years might look like free elections, but how democratic is it when you first need hundreds of millions of dollars or have to beg among billionaires just to be a serious presidential candidate? [edje: or simply get crypto-minded people to drop their money into NFTs, tokens and whatnot]. How democratic is it for voters to be presented with only two options - both of which the majority now say - they don't want? What's democratic about the systematic way in which millions of citizens are made unable to vote based on their skin colour and the wrong zip code? And how democratic can you call it when the leading candidate in the polls says - without shame - that he won't necessarily accept the outcome, threatens to prosecute political opponents if he wins, and meanwhile openly daydreams about an illegal third term?
No, the United States are more a democracy in name, a kleptocracy in reality, and an autocracy in the making. It's no wonder one of the most talked-about Hollywood films of 2024, "Civil War," [edje: need to see this one still] revolves around a civil war in contemporary America: it was an earlobe away from the dystopian prophecy coming a step closer.
And even a failed assassination attempt will only increase tensions. Don't expect the elections to be about climate change or the economy anymore [edje: not following all but hear a lot of slandering]. It took Trump less than a minute to turn the attack into a media moment by clenching his fist and posing as a bloodied and invincible martyr with an American flag in the background – an image that virtually all news media adopted uncritically. It exemplifies Trump's most basic instinct: how to turn news into a propaganda machine.
The fact that the Republicans almost immediately blamed President Biden and the Democrats for creating a 'climate of violence' with their rhetoric, follows the far-right media script perfectly, fitting a world that only consists of 'us and them' – but it's insane nonetheless. For years, their cult leader has - literally - called for violence, resulting in a violent coup attempt and the storming of the Capitol. The Republicans, incited by their former president, chanted "Hang Mike Pence!" during that storming – a call for the hanging of their vice president. How much butter can one put on one's head? [edje: Dutch saying which more or less means: how ignorant and blind-to-the-reality one can be].
The fact that public intellectuals and politicians continue to claim - with a straight face - that political violence is 'un-American', is almost laughable. Political violence is practically as American as obesity and apple pie. Ask Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, George Floyd, or yet another high school shooter with a semi-automatic weapon and a political manifesto in hand.
So yes, the attack on Donald Trump is horrific, deplorable, and unacceptable, but shocking? I wish it were.
The attack on Trump is an attack on democracy in critical condition. And his increasingly likely re-election [edje: perhaps a little less now with Kamala as his opponent] in November will be the further demolition of it.
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