The assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump’s life on July 13 may very well have an impact on the upcoming presidential election. According to polls, Trump was in a statistical dead heat with his Democratic rival, President Joe Biden, who is himself under scrutiny following a disappointing performance during a debate with the Republican nominee last June 27. Biden is also weathering calls from a significant segment of the Democratic Party to withdraw from the race because of perceived weakness as an 81-year-old candidate, and allow a younger Democrat to be chosen at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next August. As Trump drew sympathy following his close encounter with death, and while he has officially been nominated as his party’s candidate at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, media and observer speculation has increased as to whether the assassination attempt has enhanced his winning chances, kept them unchanged, or made them worse.
The July 13 incident has also once more exposed the unfortunate reality of political violence in the United States that has claimed the lives of many American presidents and politicians over the years and continues to be a threat, especially as the American public becomes more polarized. American politicians and opinion makers, most prominently President Biden himself, have decried this unwelcome reality, with the president using his bully pulpit to preach that “There is no place in America for this kind of violence — for any violence.” On the other hand, the United States has also used political violence around the world to change regimes and prop up strongmen committed to friendly relations with the United States and to protecting American interests.
Arab Center Washington DC asked some of its analysts and affiliates to comment on the potential political impact of the assassination attempt in the United States and to discuss possible attendant effects on American policy. They were specifically asked to provide personal views on the following question: “In your opinion, how could the attempt on former President Donald Trump’s life impact the upcoming US presidential election?” Their answers are below.
Khalil E. Jahshan, ACW Executive Director
July 13, 2024 has been added to the long list of infamous acts of political violence that have characterized American history since the country’s founding in 1776. Dozens of attempted assassinations against federal, state, and local officials were traced as far back as 1835, with the attempt on the seventh US president Andrew Jackson. Between 1865 and 2024, four presidents have been assassinated while dozens of other politicians were injured or escaped unharmed. Donald Trump is simply the latest victim of this scourge.
The nation’s reaction to these incidents is always simultaneously emotional, and traumatic. Politicians, however, tend to react with abundant predictability and hypocrisy. President Biden’s response to Trump’s shooting was a classic case in point. In his first comment on the Butler, Pennsylvania campaign incident, Biden typically called for unity and appealed to the American public to “take a step back,” and “cool it down,” by lowering the political temperature of the campaign season. The President emphasized that “There is no place in America for this type of violence or for any violence.” “In America,” he concluded, “we resolve our differences at the ballot box…Not with bullets.”
First, there is a huge gap between political statements necessitated by the shooting incident to assuage fears in America and the realistic temperament prevalent in the country, particularly at this highly polarized and tense political juncture. The violence attempted against Trump is not a historic anomaly; indeed, it is as American as can be. I am frankly not impressed by the sanctimonious claims of all politicians at this time.
Second, the nature of the assassination attempt, its volatile target, the sociopolitical background of his constituency, and above all, the tragic timing of the presidential campaign, quickly transformed the event into a rallying cry for his supporters and irreversibly tipped the balance of victory on November 5 in his favor. I have no idea about the motives of Thomas Matthew Crooks for shooting Donald trump, but he succeeded in giving the former president a political victory on a silver platter.
Charles W. Dunne, ACW Non-resident Senior Fellow
One shot, literally and figuratively, may be all it takes to swing the US election decisively in Donald Trump’s favor.
The errant assassin’s bullet that left Trump wounded and a rally-goer dead also left an indelible portrait of Trumpism’s self-image, distilled: bloodied but defiant, Trump raising his fist above a black-clad scrum of Secret Service officers, the American flag billowing behind him, a nearly sculptural composition reminiscent of the monumental statue in Arlington, Virginia, of the Marine flag raising at Iwo Jima.
The attempted assassination has, in the minds of many Americans and almost all of Trump’s supporters, cast an aura of inevitability over his quest to regain the White House. It has been reinforced by an extraordinary run of good luck, including a Supreme Court ruling granting him some immunity for acts he committed in office, and a federal judge’s decision to dismiss the classified documents case against him. In contrast, the narrative around President Joe Biden remains focused on his mental and physical fitness for office, and whether he will be forced from the top of the Democratic ticket. Vitality vs. senescence: a political dynamic that spells doom for the candidate on the losing end of the comparison.
Whether this lasts is another question. After all, Trump’s record remains soiled by felony convictions, numerous outstanding criminal charges, an attempted coup, extremist and racialized rhetoric, well-founded suspicions of personal corruption, and substantial policy failures in office. Popularity bumps tend to be fleeting, even after assassination attempts. And Democrats may yet shake up the race by seeing Biden off and choosing a younger, more electrifying candidate for whom the Trump campaign is wholly unprepared. Failing that, the race appears on course for a Democratic defeat.
Internationally, the attempt on Trump’s life and the spiraling chaos of this election season has reinforced the growing impression of the United States as politically unstable. Russia and China are already seeking to take advantage. The hard choices this forces upon America’s allies will have far-reaching impacts on the next president’s foreign policy.
Amy Hawthorne, ACW Publications Editor
Contrary to some predictions, the horrific July 13 assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump may not have a major impact on the November 5 election. It may only help him at the margins, or not at all. Granted, in a close race marginal effects are sometimes decisive, but the shooting is unlikely to change two fundamental realities.
The first is Americans’ desensitization to gun violence that does not affect them directly. In the United States, mass shootings are so common now that they are a staple of our news coverage. As a result, the initial shock of news reports quickly turns to numbness and even fatalism. In large part this is because gun safety has become a highly partisan issue, and elected officials will not unite to solve the problem. Before the seminal 1999 Columbine High School massacre, a shooting like last Saturday’s would have brought the nation to a standstill. Now, just days after the Trump shooting, the story competes with many other headlines.
One might hope that an attempt to murder a presidential candidate and former President could puncture the collective numbness. But the truth is that not just gun culture but also assassination attempts have a long history in the United States. And for some Americans, the desensitization now extends to political violence. Undoubtedly, Trump’s rationalization of the January 6 riot that he encouraged at the US Capitol and his broader normalization of violent rhetoric are part of this trend.
The second reality is the contrast of Trump’s passionate base to Joe Biden’s lackluster one. The shooting—and Trump’s defiant response—may deepen his fans’ attachment, but these voters (and most Republicans) were already going to support him no matter what, so his voters’ doubling down is unlikely to be a game-changer. What is less clear is how the shooting will affect the pivotal 6 percent of undecided voters in six swing states. Probably more important are their perceptions of the economy and President Biden’s age (especially if he has another disastrous performance). As for Democrats, high turnout is essential to Biden’s reelection. But with the candidate unpopular in his own party, motivating huge numbers of Biden voters remains an uphill battle.
Laurie King, ACW Board Member; Professor, Georgetown University
Presidential election years in the United States are always a time of spectacles: rallies, debates, and of course, festival-like conventions. This year, however, we are witnessing new spectacles as the United States descends into a surreal and terrifying political theatre of the absurd. In recent weeks, Americans have seen the Democratic nominee melting down in a display of geriatric dementia on a debate state, and the Republican nominee bloodied by an attempted assassination at a rally in Pennsylvania.
Images and imagery are a key part of any election campaign. It is all about marketing a candidate and communicating viscerally more so than rationally. Images get a lot more information across than the mainstream media’s 10-second sound-bytes. While President Joe Biden will not be able to escape the growing doubts about his ability to serve after his alarming debate performance, the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump served only to enhance his image as a martyr and hero for his supporters. Photographs of his determined face, streaked with blood, as he raised his fist and shouted “Fight! Fight! Fight!” are powerful images that will do more for his campaign, and probably his election for another four years in the White House, than a thousand campaign ads could ever do.
Meanwhile, the far more lethal and bloody spectacle of daily massacres in Gaza scarcely fleets across our television screens or appears on the front pages of US newspapers. Whether Trump or Biden win the presidential election in November, the blood-soaked theatre of the absurd in Gaza will continue, and possibly worsen. If the policy recommendations of the GOP’s Project 2025 are any indication, however, freedom of speech about the horrors of Gaza, in the media and on college campuses, and in the halls of Congress, will be squelched under a Trump presidency. America has entered a frightening era of delusion and demagoguery from which it might never recover.
Daniel Brumberg, ACW Non-resident Senior Fellow; Professor, Georgetown University
Iran’s leaders have assumed for some time that Donald Trump will win the election. The failed assassination attempt on him, which could very well increase Trump’s chances for victory in November, will only reinforce this assumption. For Iran’s hardliners, a re-elected Trump will be the gift that keeps on giving. He withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA), allowing them to argue that the United States could not be trusted to hold on to the agreement. By contrast, Trump’s reelection will undercut whatever leverage the reformists might secure from the election of Masoud Pezeshkian to the Iranian presidency. An advocate of engagement with the West, Pezeshkian might reappoint Javad Zarif as foreign minister, thus creating a small window for rekindling indirect talks with the United States on the nuclear issue and other regional concerns, including Gaza. Trump’s election will shut this window very quickly.
Iran’s hardliners need and want conflict with the United States, but do not desire a full-scale war. That is the core of their “resistance strategy.” This balancing act, which has only become more dangerous since October 7, 2023, will be easier to sustain with Trump because his bellicose language will play well for hardliners, while his abiding desire to avoid war—and to limit the American military footprint in the Middle East and Europe—will reduce the chances for a sustained armed conflict with the United States. The attempted assassination also bolsters the hardliners’ argument—often articulated by Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei—that the United States is in decline as internal conflict and social strife engulf American society. This depiction of the United States is not so different from the vision of chaos and decline that Trump so readily expresses. His “Make America Great Again” slogan fills the hearts of populists in both Iran and the United States.
Featured image credit: Twitter
