“Fight, fight, fight!”

These were the words of a bloodied Donald Trump as Secret Service agents helped him to his feet yesterday at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, immediately after an assassination attempt in which one person in the crowd was killed instantly and two were critically wounded. The former president was struck in the right ear, but not seriously injured.

Blood dripping from the wound and streaking across the side of his face, Trump seemed dazed for only a moment before angrily pumping his fist into the air to exhort the crowd of his supporters, who immediately began chanting USA! USA! USA! As the former president was hustled off stage by a phalanx of agents, he continued to demonstrate that while bloodied, he was unbowed. Even as he was urgently pushed into his waiting black SUV, he struggled against the agents so that the crowd — and the cameras — would continue to see him pumping his fist.

As of this writing, Trump is back at his home in Bedminster, New Jersey, having been treated and released from a Pennsylvania hospital from what, fortunately for him, appears to have been only a flesh wound. The limited information released so far by the FBI indicates that the shooter was twenty-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, an upscale town about fifty miles away from the rally site in Butler, PA, a small, Republican stronghold north of Pittsburgh.

Three facts are known about Crooks which will inform the narrative that will emerge from this instantly pivotal event in the 2024 presidential campaign. The first is that he was Caucasian. The second is that he was a registered Republican. The third — and the one certain to be repeated endlessly by Trump supporters — is that he donated $15 via Act Blue to the Progressive Turnout Project on January 20, 2021, the day of President Biden’s inauguration.

Chris LaCivita, Trump’s senior campaign advisor, took little time in posting a July 8^th quote from President Biden on X: “So we’re done talking about the debate, it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.” This unfortunate figurative phrase has predictably led to a flood of overheated rhetoric suggesting that the President was responsible for inciting the attack.

For his part, President Biden, at church in Rehoboth, Delaware when the shooting occurred, called the assassination attempt “sick” and reached out to his rival twice, connecting on the second attempt to offer his prayers for Trump’s recovery.

The political world has now been turned upside down. These two men did not even shake hands at the debate, such is the level of enmity between them. Those feelings have not been changed by the shooting. What has changed are the constraints on Biden and Harris to ratchet up their campaign rhetoric. Already, the Democratic campaign has suspended its television advertising featuring verbal assaults on the character and fitness of Donald Trump. Many of the spots characterize his attempt to return to the Oval Office – accurately – as an existential threat to the Constitution and to the Republic itself.

Now, Trump alone controls the narrative. He has been “saved by the Lord” to return America to greatness. The next four days of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee will serve as the televised resurrection of Donald the Warrior. Donald the Invincible. Donald the Savior.

Speaking to POLITICO, GOP Congressman Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin said the not-so-quiet-part out loud, “President Trump survives this attack – he just won the election.” Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Van Orden’s equally ecstatic colleague — and the leading proponent of UFOs in both the Congress and the Bible—added, “This will energize the base more than anything…he’s yelling “fight, fight, fight. That’ll be the slogan.”

Gore Vidal acerbically called Ronald Reagan, “the old television president.” Reagan, too, survived an assassination attempt in 1981. While being wheeled in for surgery he said to his wife, “Honey, I forgot to duck!” That line became instantly iconic, and emblematic of Reagan’s grace and good humor after having been under fire.

Trump, another old television president, now seeking a reboot for a second term, did not display grace under fire. His angry demeanor and theatrical battle cry were far from the equanimity and civility that Reagan displayed after being much more seriously wounded.

So, how will this sudden injection of violence affect the course of the presidential race?

Shortly before the shooting, I was speaking with an old friend who’s been a major player in Democratic political circles for decades. We were talking about the Trump/Biden debate which, until yesterday’s political earthquake, had seemed to be the defining moment of the 2024 campaign. He reminded me of Bill Clinton’s political axiom, “Strong and wrong always beats weak and right.”

Biden’s shocking weakness at the debate has opened the door for a younger and more energetic nominee running on Biden’s record to take on Trump. Whether that remains an option will almost certainly be determined this week, when it is probable the President will have an in-person discussion about his electoral viability with Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi. If there is to be a replacement, in my view it will be Vice President Kamala Harris.

Today, the nation – indeed the world – is faced with a bracing political reality. Donald Trump has become even stronger. The indelible picture of him with his face bloody and his fist raised, a Secret Service agent on either side of him and the flag flying behind them, comprises what one of his supporters has dubbed Trump’s “Iwo Jima” moment.

A week of the Republican Convention will be re-programmed to remind the nation over and over again that Donald Trump represents personal strength, a quality that is no more real than his vaunted acumen as a successful businessman.

But perception – like television – becomes reality. This television moment has achieved something that seemed impossible. It has transformed the image of Donald Trump, a twice-impeached convicted felon and adjudged rapist, into that of a victim of gun violence.

Joe Biden and the Democrats are being blamed for using incendiary rhetoric that led to the attempted assassination. This from a party and its standard bearer who called the January 6^th insurrectionists “hostages”; cheered as Mike Pence, their own Vice President, was in real danger of being hanged by those same insurrectionists; scoffed when Nancy Pelosi’s 82-year-old husband was viciously attacked with a hammer in their home by a right-wing conspiracy theorist; and whose tolerance of antisemitism and open support for Brownshirts contributed to a climate in which eleven Jewish worshipers were mowed down by a Christian nationalist at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, less than an hour away from yesterday’s deadly rally. All of these events and more are demonstrably linked to the hatred and vitriol that Trump has deliberately spewed into our national discourse for the last decade.

No one cheers violence. It must be condemned whenever it happens. But in a just world, long before Joe Biden apologizes for his unwitting metaphor, it would be Donald Trump who should renounce his calculated rhetoric and the hate it has fostered, and show remorse for its inevitable consequences.

A final thought: for as long as I can remember, Republicans have long had one notable Achilles’ Heel. Simply put, when they have power, they invariably overreach for more. Richard Nixon didn’t need the Watergate break-in of the Democratic National Committee to defeat George McGovern in 49 states. House Republicans didn’t need to open an impeachment inquiry of Bill Clinton in 1998, a miscalculation that backfired almost immediately with their surprisingly poor performance in the 1998 midterms — and the resulting resignation of Speaker Newt Gingrich, who was rightly blamed for their losses.

Donald Trump is going to spend the next week basking in the glow of his “heroism.” It should be noted that one week does not redefine a person’s fundamental character.

Just ask Rudy Giuliani.