Assassination attempt on Donald Trump

 Assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

It almost felt as if the clock had been wound back to November 22nd 1963, surely one of the most horrific days in the history of American politics. Picture the scene, America's most loved and idolised President was being driven through streets of adoring crowds in a scene which would break the hearts of every American who believed that President John F. Kennedy was, quite simply, the greatest man they had ever seen. Kennedy was the name on everybody's lips, a political giant whose face seemed to be plastered on every young female teenager's bedroom wall, the talk of every high school college, coffee bar and doughnut stall in the United States. 

But back on that now fatal day, Kennedy was cruelly assassinated because of his dubious connections with the sinister and powerful. You can still see those youthfully exuberant features on his face, the hair on his head being gently pushed away from his forehead as the sun shone brightly on what should have been another idyllic day for Kennedy. But then it was ended so abruptly that even though it was the day before your first birthday, it still resonates quite profoundly with you. The gun fire shots rang out gravely and portentously and, hours later, President John F. Kennedy was declared dead in a local hospital.

For years and years, America was a country traumatised, shocked almost indefinitely and wondering where exactly it should go without its most influential President since perhaps Roosevelt or Truman, a man who every American believed would lead them into the world of honeyed prosperity. But, with a single crack of a gun from the balcony of a nearby building, Kennedy had been assassinated and the course of history would take a most unwelcome turn of events. America mourned and the rest of the world asked important questions that could never be answered.

And so for President John F. Kennedy in 1963, read one Donald Trump, the former President of the United States of America in 2024. The circumstances may have been entirely different but the fact of the matter is that here is a man, who although mercilessly mocked by the rest of the world, almost lost his life. Now of course Trump has been portrayed as a figure of fun, caricatured and lampooned by every satirist and cartoonist in both Britain and most of those countries who are convinced that this man is just a music hall joke.

For the last couple of years, Trump has kept an almost silent low profile because not only has he been deposed by one Joe Biden but nobody can possibly imagine him as President once again. In November, America go to the polls and, alarmingly, Trump has now emerged as odds on favourite to regain the hot seat in the White House. And all because somebody brave enough decided to take a pot shot and ensure a lifetime of notoriety and scandal. But not this time since Trump privately knew that the shot would miss by a country mile and indeed it did.

Now, in the general scheme of things, this one incident would have been quickly air brushed from the media archives and never shown again. But what we have here is some severe warning to the whole population of the United States that the assassination attempt we witnessed on Donald Trump was for real and far too serious to be swept under the carpet and just ignored. Trump is now the centre of attention and how he revels in the oxygen of publicity. The man who must be watched and listened to closely is back on the front page of every magazine and newspaper throughout the world.

And yet on Saturday night in Britain we discovered the world is still destabilised, at war with forces that are completely beyond our control, a dangerous and vulnerable place where anything can happen. America is an angry, murderous and violent place, an aggressive battleground where even American presidents can feel exposed, an easy target for potential snipers or terrorists. So we turned on our TVs, radios and social media outlets and were informed that somebody had fired bullets at Donald Trump.

In the middle of  Trump's latest narcissistic campaign rallies, Trump did what he's been doing ever since the election bugles started blasting away at us from all  directions. We were half way through a philosophical Trump tirade, a speech dripping with poison and bile reserved only for President Biden. And then, suddenly, it all kicked off because maybe we should have known anyway. But how could anybody could have bargained for some savage monster with little regard for human life?

Turning around to make his point with some choice remark about Biden, there was what sounded like an air pistol going off with a mass of security heavyweights diving all over the ex President, pinning him to the ground as if their lives depended on it and Trump was hustled to the ground in double quick time. It reminded you of Ronald Reagan, another American poster boy, who could do no wrong in American eyes. Reagan, emerging from an important diplomatic meeting, was peppered with bullets but only survived thanks to the wonderful athleticism of his body guards who just threw Reagan into the back seat of the car without a moment's hesitation. 

Over the weekend, a bullet was fired from the rooftop of a building literally yards away from Trump. Before you could blink or gasp with horror, the said bullet whistled past Trump's ear and away into the distance. In one terrifying moment, the world once again stood still and not for the first time. Suddenly, in a heroic act of bravura and defiance, Trump bunched his fist together and punched the air. With blood pouring from the side of his ear, Trump, briefly taken aback, just dusted himself down as if nothing had happened. It could have been a whole lot worse and thank goodness it didn't because, if it had, the repercussions of that one event might have left America permanently shell shocked.

Today the United States of America just continues to take in the enormity of yet another assassination attempt at, this time, a former President. Rather like Britain, the Americans are pretty good on that whole issue of resilience and strength of character. When the Twin Towers in New York was completely flattened by evil terrorists 23 years ago, nobody thought we'd see yet another outrage against civil liberty. But we did and although, thankfully, Trump wasn't murdered, it does make you wonder what exactly must be going through the collective minds of every good, upstanding American citizen.

On the one hand they have an American president who can barely string a sentence together without making himself look like a fool and another former President with even greater delusions of grandeur. Now we all know about the combined ages of both Trump and Biden and this may not be the decisive factor come November. But you look at Trump and Biden and you despair of that whole nightmare scenario of a leader of the Free World where everything looks horribly dysfunctional, and, dare you say it, freakish.

For the historians of course there was the tragedy of Abraham Lincoln, a 19th century American president who was a bit of a radical busybody in his spare time. One night, at a theatre performance where Lincoln was seen to be hobnobbing with the great and good of the thespian world, some disenchanted anti Lincoln protestor, chanced their arm and shot Lincoln dead. So assassinations and America have somehow become unfortunate chapters in the nation's history books.

What we do know now is that Trump and Biden will be battling it out to see who becomes the head honcho in the volatile circles of American politics. For the next four months we will be subjected to much the same treatment the United Kingdom had to endure a couple of weeks ago. Both Trump and Biden will be bullish, blustering, bellowing at the tops of each other's voices, attacking their respective policies and promises. And then by the start of autumn, things will get really juicy and childishly banal, one suspects. In November, most of us will probably demand ear muffs or cotton wool just to blot out all of the noisy madness and incoherent drivel from both men. So be prepared world, it'll be unsightly.

Donald Trump of course is one of those frustrated comedians who still thinks he should be treading the boards and entertaining the public on a Las Vegas stage. He still barks out an incessant barrage of ridiculous rhetoric about nothing in particular. He will keep ranting and raving until his throat can take no more and he is still distressingly dogmatic and yet morally bankrupt. But ladies and gentlemen, this is the man who may well become President of the United States and he just wants you to be much kinder towards him. 

He talks like a man who can take on any of the intellectuals at an Oxford debating society and still know more than they do. Trump, the larger than life personality with an ego bigger than a New York skyscraper, just keeps showboating and grandstanding like a man who just wants world domination now rather than tomorrow. He may think he's the best thing since sliced bread and we all know how much he loves to look at his bathroom mirror in the morning, reminding us again that he's a gorgeous Adonis with no faults at all and entirely misunderstood. 

The dramatic events of last weekend may change the focus of our perspective. This week Trump has been roving across all of those familiar states of America with a small bandage next to his ear. The trickle of blood that dripped down Trump's face may become the definitive image of the year. Here, in the United Kingdom, an eminent human rights lawyer and barrister named Sir Keir Starmer became Prime Minister while a man called Donald Trump will be striving with every sinew in his body to become the next President of the United States of his country. You really couldn't have written a more riveting soap opera script. Nobody could possibly make it up.