The Attempted Assassination of the Man Who'd be Hitler

And the unsurprisingly dark symmetry between rhetoric and reality

The attempted assassination of Donald Trump was a surprisingly effective sedative for the US politics’ raw nerves. Pulsating incessantly for eight long years, now they rest, eerily silent.

Had the bullet strayed but half an inch to the left, the long-anticipated cries of civil war might have echoed through the streets. A graze and it represents an unfathomable surge of political violence that should find no place in a democracy—yet, paradoxically, it now does.

Nobody really questions why a radicalised extreme-left operative just pulled the trigger. Nobody who has been watching TV or reading the papers. The pressing question is why do so many mourn the attack on a man they denounce as a modern-day Hitler?

I confess, I hold more than just a passing understanding for the shooter. Were our ideologies aligned, we might have found ourselves in deep agreement. Faced with the embodiment of Hitler only a few yards away, what is one to do?

Attempts to end Trump’s career have been many and close between. They tried to make him ineligible, bankrupt him, and jail him — all fruitless endeavours. As conspiracy theorists had long seen, assassination was the logical next step. Yet, when the silver bullet was fired, it backfired spectacularly.

Picture the scene: maybe if Trump had skimped on the orange tanner on his right ear that morning, the outcome might have been different.

We are told another ‘lone wolf’ was at play—always them, isn’t it?

From the Steppenwolf who wounded Steve Scalise to the grey wolf who targeted Trump, lone wolves seem to prowl through contemporary history. With a taste for right-wing meat. Just this year, they’ve got Slovakia’s conservative Prime Minister Robert Fico and Germany’s anti-immigration candidate Heinrich Koch, before setting sights on Trump.

A global pack of lone wolves, groomed from pups to fight ‘fascism’ at all costs.

But who sent them? Surely, someone had to recruit, radicalise, and persuade the lone wolf to pull the trigger. Someone had to hand them a gun loaded with hateful rhetoric.

Snipers are trained to close their non-dominant eye to mute the half of the brain you don’t need when you’re about to kill someone. Yet, at that decisive moment, when it’s time to pull the trigger, things tense up. Adrenaline speeds your heart, your eyes want to open a bit more, your brain begins to betray you, and your confidence wavers. That’s why many professional shooters wear an eyepatch, to calm the brain and focus the good eye on the target, maximising the use of muscle memory.

Thus, the Pennsylvania shooter remained unswerving, his focus sharpened by the media’s eyepatch and the years of muscle memory from violent and extremist rhetoric against the man seen as the reincarnation of Hitler, who would destroy democracy and cause World War III.

Biden, just last week, told supporters it was time to “put Trump in a bullseye.” For the sniper, it was a shot of self-defence. It’s almost as if the shooter was left with no choice.

Trump’s brush with attempted assassination doesn’t shock me; rather, it’s the ensuing dismay and outrage from the mainstream media and the extreme left that startles. If they truly believed the hate speech they preach, they should rejoice that someone finally tried to do what they lacked the courage to do themselves: save democracy at any cost. Stop Hitler before the Holocaust.

Just as the extreme-left briefly had moments of solidarity with Israel in the aftermath October 7th, only to quickly revert to their customary anti-Semitic rhetoric, this fleeting wave of empathy will similarly disappear.

Democratic Colorado state Rep. Steven Woodrow stands alone on the left with a level-headed perspective, fearing this assassination attempt might only engender greater “sympathy for the devil” Donald Trump.

This remains the only rational, consistent, and coherent position for those indulging in extremist rhetoric — short of acknowledging that the true threat facing the nation is the incensed reaction of the unhinged MAGA Republicans.

Soon, they’ll mourn the lost silver bullet, lamenting the vast potential it left unfulfilled.

Yet, observing the reactions so far, the shooter must feel like a fool. Not only for the lukewarm reception of his actions but for ensuring that Trump might just win the election, should he survive until November.