Readers may feel they have heard enough about the assassination attempt against former US president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump. Information certainly abounds on the history of assassinations in the US, from Abraham Lincoln after the North’s victory in the Civil War, to president John F Kennedy and his brother Robert — then also a presidential candidate — around a hundred years later.
Other assassination attempts, such as those targeting Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, have been discussed in exhaustive detail. The latter attempt was motivated by an amorous fixation. When firing six bullets at Reagan, the would-be assassin, John Hinckley Jr, imagined this would impress the actress, Jodie Foster. The story was about the protagonist and life imitating Hollywood.
But the political aspects of assassination in the US have also intrigued people. Together with dozens of US and European officials, commentators have argued that such political violence does not fit in the democratic paradigm. The democratic system of government was the perfect bulwark against assassinations, they held. It made no difference that the constitution explicitly upholds the right to bear arms to fend off tyranny and the right to take up arms against a tyrannical ruler.
The relationship between the proliferation of weapons and democracy has never been discussed with the seriousness it merits. If there is any discussion of the question at all, it focuses on the psychological dimension. “It’s not guns that kill people; people do,” pro-gun advocates will never tire of saying. Fiction has attempted to address the issue, again in Hollywood style, with the focus on the individual hero. A prime example is Stephen King’s 11/22/63, a novel about a time traveller who tries to prevent the assassination of John Kennedy.
Totally overlooked are two fundamental features of the modern state: the monopoly on the legitimate recourse to force, and the rule of law. A third feature, characteristic of the modern democratic state, is the electoral process conducted in such a way as to ensure that society at large, as opposed to an individual or small group, chooses the political leaders. Thus, Thomas Matthew Crooks’ attempt to assassinate Trump was essentially an attempt to disrupt the democratic process. Yet is this not what Trump too tried to do, both during his time in office and, again, afterwards?
Democracy, at heart, is about striking an equilibrium in the balance of power and the competition between authorities and institutions that serves the interests of the citizenry. Disruption of democratic processes throws all that out of whack. Trump has effectively turned the Republican Party from a political party into a personal propaganda mill. He created a near permanent imbalance between the authorities when he made the Supreme Court a monopoly for Conservatives who will control six of its nine seats virtually for life.
After the 2020 elections, he attempted to undermine the entire election system by pressuring electoral officials in Georgia to come up with votes in his favour and, more generally, by casting doubt on the integrity of the balloting process through incessant allegations that the Democrats rigged the vote. He then demonstrated the lengths to which he was prepared to go by encouraging and inciting insurrection in the form of the storming of Congress on 6 January 2021.
Many of Trump’s acts have been brought before the courts. In some, politics fused with pornography and other moral issues, but that did not make a dent in his high ratings in public opinion polls. This brings us to another crucial point regarding the crisis of democracy, and US democracy in particular.
Democracy presumes the collective wisdom of the people and that this will be expressed in their collective choice of the person who leads and represents them internationally. It also presumes that if a president did not live up to their expectations, they could rectify that in the next election. But the problem today is that, even though Trump failed the American people when they chose him eight years ago, whether by failing to protect them from the pandemic or in other ways, and was therefore replaced by Biden, they appear prepared to elect Trump again now, despite court rulings and other judicial proceedings.
Politics is no longer about making informed choices between political parties, their platforms and what best serves the public good. Nor is it about institutions that debate, discuss, and probe to produce the most sensible solutions. Rationalism has gone out of politics, leaving the democratic process prey to populism, while until very recently the choice boiled down to two old men who had persuaded their parties that there were no alternatives.
On the one hand is the geriatric who visibly displays all the signs of age while maintaining that the alternative is fascism. On the other side is a case of consummate narcissism who has vowed to avenge himself against his adversaries the moment he takes power without hearing a peep of criticism for that from inside his party or out.
It is still unclear what drove Thomas Matthew Crooks to try to assassinate Trump. It will undoubtedly have the ingredients for an exciting film.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 25 July, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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