Surviving the survivor
When that rifle bullet grazed Donald Trump’s ear last week, I’m sure I wasn’t alone in having an equally nasty thought whiz through my brain – and I’ll put this as delicately as I can: would it be un-Christian to wish misfortune on Satan and his minions? And less delicately, why does a God who allows bombs to drop on innocent children in Ukraine and Gaza spare a man who seems the very embodiment of the Seven Deadly Sins – pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth to those who’ve forgotten – and who will most certainly destroy as much of humanity as we know it before he mercifully expires?
To the MAGA faithful, Trump’s salvation could have been nothing less than divine intervention, a virtual endorsement of his worthiness and indeed his destiny to rule. In one of the many ironies to be found in American politics today, Trump was shot at by a registered Republican using an AR-15-type rifle – the serial shooter’s weapon of choice, and the National Rifle Association’s darling – despite which Republican leaders like Marjorie Taylor Greene were quick to denounce the attempt as a plot instigated by the “evil” Democratic Party. The Democrats are now the war freaks, with Joe Biden liable to be charged for “inciting an assassination,” according to Georgia Rep. Mike Collins (the same fellow who has called for the release and pardon of the rioters who attacked the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021). Trump marched into the Republican convention with a bandage on his ear and a halo around his head. “He just won the election,” a Wisconsin congressman told the media.
Given the polls, he was probably going to do that, anyway, facing an anemic and increasingly isolated Biden, who was really the one in need of something so theatrical to happen to jolt his campaign. In an environment shaped by media coverage and social media shares, that picture of a bloodied Trump raising his fist in front of the Stars and Stripes couldn’t have been better produced. Let’s add to the script his big Supreme Court win on immunity and the dismissal of his classified documents case, and the Orange Man is clearly on a roll and on a path back to the White House, no matter what. The stars are aligning,
