They couldn’t give a quarter; At 9:12 p.m. on Thursday, June 27, Atlanta time, everyone knew that Joe Biden I shouldn’t have been there in the CNN studio dealing with Donald Trump during the first presidential debate of the election season. From this sequence of hesitations, lost glances and unfinished sentences, his comrades set to work: a replacement had to be found.
Biden’s fall took several weeks to happen and, if it had been up to him, he would still be Trump’s opponent today. More lucid minds prevailed and the internal rebellion, led by the almighty Nancy Pelosipushed the Democratic Party to turn its back on the octogenarian, in search of a character who would have a chance, however remote, of retaining the White House.
Meanwhile, Trump received some good news and a shot in the ear.
The good news came on July 1, when the Supreme Court ruled that the former president had immunity from prosecution for official actions he took during his four years in the White House, including the speech he gave on January 6, 2021. and this is what – according to many – encouraged the demonstrators gathered that day in Washington to storm the Capitol.
As for the shooting, it took place 13 days later, in a town in Pennsylvania, when a twenty-year-old young man named Thomas Matthew Crooks He managed to climb onto a roof near the stage where Trump was giving a rally and opened fire on him. The candidate miraculously saved his life, although Crooks killed an aide and injured six others before being killed by Secret Service agents. The photo of Trump leaving the scene with a bloody face, raised fist and exclaiming to fight, to fight. struggle for his supporters, this one will go down in the history books. Furthermore, following this attack, the richest man in the world, Elon Muskdeclared his support for him (he has since donated about $120 million to his campaign).
Donald Trump, after the first failed assassination attempt.
Reuters
It was a week after this assassination attempt that Biden, defeated by circumstances, the evolution of the polls and the abandonment of his own, declared that he was withdrawing from the race. In his announcement, published on the social network X, he also indicated that he would like his witness to be picked up by his lieutenant: Kamala Harris.
There were those speculating about whether the Democratic Party would support Harris – a gray candidate with a reputation for being hostile – after Biden resigned or whether, instead, it would delve into some sort of primaries. in order to choose a more popular figure. someone like Josh ShapiroGovernor of Pennsylvania; Gavin NewsomGovernor of California; either Pete Buttigiegformer mayor of a small town in Indiana and current Secretary of Transportation. There was even speculation that Michelle Obama.
But leaders, with Pelosi at the helm, decided there was no time to compete and the Democratic Party closed ranks around Harris, who happily accepted the challenge before hunkering down to prepare its strategy. This played out on two somewhat contradictory fronts. On the one hand, the defense of Biden’s presidency since, after all, she was his vice president and is still part of his legacy. And, on the other, the distance from his still boss to be able to promise a future that is not entirely continuous.
The changing deck within the Democratic Party caught Trump on the wrong foot. Thus, the former president, who had just taken a carefree mass bath during the Republican National Convention held a few days earlier in Milwaukee, where he had incidentally announced that the very young ultra-conservative senator J.D. Vance would be his second, he returned for certain privileges that his advisors believed had been abandoned. In other words: he viscerally attacked the Democratic Party, which he also accused of having motivated the shooting of the Crooks with its insults and attacks. According to a conservative magazine columnist National reviewthe real reason for the anger was none other than the return to work. With Biden, everything was done; With Harris, it was urgent to pull himself together. And 78 years is not little.
Other voices, however, assured that these attacks were precisely part of the new strategy required by the change of rival. Either way, Harris’ arrival made Trump become Trump again.
A month later, in mid-August, the polls were balanced again and the progressives finally regained confidence. In silver: Enthusiasm around Harris flooded the Democratic National Convention, which some feared would be divisive because of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, and the party ended with a standing ovation. From there, the governor of Minnesota was named second in command, Tim Walza guy located on the left wing of the Democratic Party but, at the same time, very down to earth. His appointment caused some surprise because it was unexpected, but it did no harm.
And so began the American election cycle in September. With a draw, a visibly uncomfortable Trump and a Kamala Harris who began to receive her first criticism from her own bench for her lack of desire to make herself known publicly and for refusing to explain a political program whose no one knew – or still knows – many things. The strategy was – has been – obvious: With the left mobilized against Trump, it is better to count as little as possible so as not to scare away either the centrists or the undecided.. The guards of the White House.
The most anticipated date of this month turned out to be the evening of the 10th; the moment Trump faced Harris in the second (and final) presidential debate. Many watched the channel – ABC News – to see how the opaque Harris was faring against the fairground politics par excellence. And the truth is, he wasn’t bad at it; She had her weaknesses and mistakes, but he didn’t know how to take advantage of them.
Regardless, subsequent polls showed that while the Democratic Party had avoided a second catastrophe, Harris had also failed to put distance between them. And everyone was there, waiting for a reliable investigation that would say otherwise, when the second assassination attempt against Trump took place.
This happened in Florida, on one of its golf courses, and if things did not degenerate, it was because the secret services detected the shooter, a certain Ryan Wesley Routhbefore he could fire a single shot. This is the second attack against the same presidential candidate in two months.
Overall, the news was received fairly calmly by a society which, according to some experts, should not continue to sleep with a too clear conscience. And not so much because of the much-vaunted division, they say, because being divided in terms of ideas, principles and horizons is not bad. in itself but because of the viscerality that governs it. For the refusal of other and the conviction that it’s you or the debacle. A broth that has been in the pot for a long time and of which we might try a pot, or two, in the coming days.
