Trump, a bullet and democracy

IF anyone wishes to find out whether politics is rational (based on reason, sensible, sane) or irrational, follow the 78-year-old Donald Trump's political journey from being a wealthy, controversial businessman to becoming the 45th president of the US in 2016.

He lost to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. "I was cheated,” he repeatedly claimed.

Since then he has been fighting serious court charges, including one of insurrection, being indicted for 34 offences apart from paying “hush money” to a film actress, feverishly campaigning to be the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, hit by a bullet that aroused the world, then up to today wildly celebrated as the successful Republican candidate, earning overloaded praises even from former political rivals.

There has never been any recorded political story like Trump’s.

Whatever the political judgements, Trump’s determination, fortitude, never-give-up attitude and resistance to criticisms stand out.

As some doubt was floating about his candidacy, a bullet intended to kill him as he campaigned in Pennsylvania just wounded his right ear, killed a nearby man and wounded two others. He escaped the intended assassination. This, his raised defiant fist and oozing blood, captured the sympathy of his supporters and a concerned world. After all, America will recall that four presidents have been killed with three wounded by bullets.

What motivated 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks? Hatred? So young? Or was he instructed? No doubt this unfortunate incident will likely send Trump’s ratings up.

President Biden sent his regrets.

This episode also exposed the errors of security and policing. A few minutes earlier, the gunman was seen climbing the roof of a building about 140 yards away from Trump and was pointed out to the nearby police. A congressional inquiry has begun into the Secret Service and local police.

Meanwhile, with the Republican nomination sealed, Trump’s appearance at the party’s convention last week was really party magic. With a bandaged ear, well-chosen speaker after speaker, including former rivals, big flags, posters and whistles, he relished the glorifications and very loud applause. The real question remains: is all this party devotion and public sympathy enough for him to beat the Democratic candidate in November?

His running-mate, 39-year-old Ohio senator JD Vance, has an Indian-American wife, Usha.

The 81-year-old President Biden has big problems, with an increasing number of Democrats, inside and outside Congress and senior funders asking him to step down.

The media have also begun biting, with one show citing “Biden blunders.” This was largely triggered by Biden’s performance against the steady Donald Trump in the recent man-to-man public debate, revealing that appearance and presentation are critical in electoral politics. A lot of politics is about showmanship, theatre and propaganda, without which there is almost no politics and wherein the crowd creates the hero. Critical thinking merely irritates the flow.

Biden’s age, speaking fumbles and shaky gait have supporters wondering whether he could make a second term, locally and internationally, with pressures from an expanding BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), increasing war deaths in Gaza, Ukraine, Africa, and Chinese threats around Taiwan.

Last month, the polls showed a close call between Trump and him. (In the 2020 election, Biden got 81,283,501 votes, 51.3 per cent, 306 electoral votes; Trump 74,223,975, 46.9 per cent, 233 electoral votes.) So far, Biden hasn’t blinked. Supported by his family, he refuses to leave. Of course, the related Democrat challenge is, if he does leave, is there enough time for a replacement to compete?

Meanwhile the polarising Trump is moving ahead with an agenda for tough law and order, border and immigration controls, abortion and health care review, etc. He got judicial immunity for official acts done during his presidency. Trump has faced criticisms of being weak in foreign policy, a dictator, reckless, and even racist. Some recall his "sh--thole” reference to African countries and his hard line against the Black Lives Matter protests.

How will the changed circumstances of both Biden and Trump affect the November presidential election?

Above the political scrimmage, however, a lot of commentators are wondering about the state of democracy in America. The Economist magazine went so far to wonder whether America could become a “dictatorship.”

I doubt it. True, democracy has the seeds of its own destruction, but also the mechanisms for its own reconstruction. America’s founders and the Federalist Papers recognised the need to distrust politicians and always to have some other institution to look over them in the adversarial system. Power is an addition, they thought. Hence America’s chequered layers of transparency and accountability.

While the system caught Trump, he is using the same system to escape.