Trump defiant

In my column yesterday, I described what I thought the short term cultural ramifications of the attempt on Donald Trump’s life on July 13, 2024 would be. I concluded that it is going to make it very hard for the Democrats to continue their slander campaigns against him and all Republicans.

Today I intend to write about the political ramifications.

To understand those ramifications however you have to leave the bubble of political world. Numerous readers commenting on yesterday’s column noted quite rightly that many Democrats (both in and out of the party) are not going to change, that their hate of Republicans and Trump is too ingrained, that they will simply pause expressing that hate for a few weeks and then begin anew.

Some leftists have not even waited that long, as was seen during a Jack Black concert in Australia one day after the assassination attack, when one member of the band, Kyle Gass, publicly expressed disappointment that Trump was not murdered.

In fan-captured footage, Black can be seen presenting a birthday cake to Gass on stage and asking him to “make a wish.” Gass responds, “Don’t miss Trump next time,” referencing the less-than-day-old shooting. The video also captures the audience responding with laughter.

As I predicted yesterday, however, there are now immediate consequences for such ugly comments. Gass’s agent immediately dumped him, and Black was forced to cancel the rest of the band’s tour.

Among the political class, however, the consequences of having such ugly opinions will not be felt as badly. It is true that among partisan Democrats the desire to see Trump die will still be whispered. It is true that Democrats will still likely demonize him in public, though initially more gently and later with more nuance.

The political class however, including both partisan Democrats and Republicans, covers only a tiny percentage the American public. We in the political class need to recognize that we are in our own bubble, whether we are on the left or the right. To understand the Earth-shattering shift that is now going on in America right now you have to leave that bubble and look at the kind of people who don’t spend much time following these issues, and only begin paying attention when the election gets close and things like the presidential debates occur.

One story described in the comments to my column yesterday, told by regular reader Cotour who also has his own political blog, illustrates this shift most dramatically.

I was dealing with a young, 30ish Hispanic fully American customer the other day. I do not talk politics with my customers but will touch on it if they ask my opinion. He spontaneously says to me: “You know, I was on the fence about who I was going to vote for president in November. I am no longer on the fence”.

He will be voting for Trump.

And during this unsolicited spontaneous interaction sitting at my table happens to be sitting a FEMA manager (D) knee jerk “Trump is a racist” who I have come to know who was in the process of attempting to pick my brain for my opinion on the effects on the subject of the attempted assassination of the former president. He heard the entire interaction.

He was dumbfounded!

The Hispanic customer represents that general non-political public. The FEMA manager the political class. That non-political public saw clearly only a few weeks ago how badly it had been lied to by the propaganda press and people like that FEMA manager, that Joe Biden was mentally and physically declining, and clearly was not as “sharp as a tack” as claimed by that mainstream media and leftist poltiical world.

That uninterested public is now horrified by the assassination attempt, and are watching to see what the political class — and most especially Democrats — will do. If as expected the Democrats return to demonizing Trump as an “existential threat to democracy” and a “racist” and “bigot” and a “white supremacist,” that non-political public is no longer going to accept such lies nonchalantly, as it has in the past.

They no longer can be fooled. They know they can get better information elsewhere. They also know that the slanders and lies fed them by Democrats and the propaganda press are slander and lies, no different than the lies fed them about Joe Biden’s mental health. And that realization by the public will make any demonization against Trump boomerang back against the Democrats so badly the party will not know what hit it.

This is the fundamental political consequence of the Trump assassination attempt. For the next few months the Democrats are going to fumbling about, trying to find some “narrative” they can use to win votes, and will find they have nothing that can convince anyone to back them. They are bankrupt. Their candidate is a disaster. Their policies under Biden have been an even greater disaster, fueling war internationally, an open border that no American community is capable of handling, and a moribund economy with high inflation and saddled with heavy regulation.

Calling Trump and the Republicans “Hitler” and “fascists” and “racists” and “white supremacists” and “Christian nationalists” won’t work either. The public now sees through those lies, and will instead be insulted by them.

This dynamic has quickly been reflected by political events in the past few days. Within two days of the assassination attempt the judge overseering one of the lawfare cases against Trump threw it out, accepting the legal argument that the special prosecutor had been appointed illegally by attorney general Merrick Garland, that everything he was doing was unconstitutional. Though the judge had certainly come to this decision earlier, the timing of the annoncement was significant.

J.D. Vance

Similarly, Trump’s decision to pick J.D. Vance as his vice presidential candidate, the most conservative person being considered, was influenced by this new dynamic. Trump apparently had been leaning to pick Vance, but it appears the shooting helped him come to a final decision. Better to have someone who was a reliable conservative to replace him than to pick someone more wishy-washy, merely to win over some questionable votes. Trump no longer needs another Mike Pense or George Bush Sr. (as Reagan did). The new political atmosphere makes it clear that Trump could do this with little or no political cost.

The ramifications among Democrats also became clear almost immediately. Even though today there are rumors that the effort to replace Biden are coming back to life, after the assassination attempt numerous Democrats were saying that the fight to remove him was over. It appears Democratic Party bigwigs had concluded that the chances of them winning the White House in November, with or without Biden, are now too slim, and it is better to live with Biden than subject the party to a major public battle that can only do them more harm.

I recognize that all of this is speculation and could easily be wrong. Nonetheless, the political landscape is without doubt now undergoing some dramatic and shocking changes, and this is the direction where I see it going. And it won’t take long to find out if I am right.

If I am right however it will bode well for our country, because it will at least for a few years put an end to the legacy of hate established during the Obama years, whereby leftists could spout any lie they wanted against conservatives and get away with it. They will no longer be able to do this, without cost.