To any USA people here:
You may find it interesting that 2 months ago there was a very similar failed assassination attempt at slovak prime minister Robert Fico. He is in many ways similar to Trump, we have the same problems with misinformation, polarisation and hate, and the attempt happened before EU parliament election.
So if you want to make any predictions, you have this unique opportunity to look two months into the future
Based on the experience in Slovakia, you can expect:
- Immediate attempts on both sides to show the shooter is from the other camp. Trump side will win this, because they are better at lies and less interested in truth. This will hapen in the first two-three days.
- Trump will immediately and very explicitly put blame on his opponents. Any critique will be labeled as fanning hate and causing violence. I would not be surprised if the phrase "blood on their hands" comes up in USA too.
- The democrats will attempt to loudly condemn the violence. The more the republicans will blame them for it, the louder they will proclaim it. They will make conciliatory gestures. It will be comically absurd and ineffective.
- They will also grapple with the fact that many would prefer Trump dead and whether these feelings (and expressing them) is moral. The only correct way out is to recognise that Trump's death would help everyone except him, but this doesn't invalidate his right to safety.
Later when he is elected, he will use it as a pretext to suppress the freedom of speech, of protest, and to increase his powers.
Was the person who made the attempt from the right?
I realize in post truth environment this might not matter. But I'm kind of exasperated because they so clearly created this disturbed young man themselves in our case.
Not just because he was registered republican but the weapon he used, and the entire idea are the right wing way of doing things.
His political views were complex, a bit confused and hard to classify into a single box. He was a bit of both. He was closer to Fico than his opponents (here the dividing lines are different than right/left, so let's say closer to "antidemocratic").
But immediately after the incident this wasn't clear, and there was a firehose of misinformation and cherry picked info to identify him as liberal. They were faster and louder and formed the narrative.
Personally, I feel it's wrong to fill a country with deadly easy to use weapons of war and then spout rhetoric to make people see some neighbors as enemies out to corrupt their children or destroy their culture. Personally, I think it's important to enthusiastically endorse and celebrate our multi-ethnic, multi-religion, multi-cultural reality.
I reject rhetoric that suggests that any group must be eliminated for any others safety.
Many people, especially in Europe, would indeed suggest that Nazis must be eliminated for every others' safety...
(and Checkoslovaks know a little bit about this - cough Heydrich cough)
@futurebird @janbogar AFAIK from articles: he was also a guy who participated in far right initiatives and drank the racist-fash kool-aid.