What I saw when it happened

 

This is one of those moments (and pictures) in history that are likely to take on increasing meaning over time. I imagine I'll return to this post in the future. So, here is my account of what I saw.

On the afternoon of July 13, 2014, I was watching tv. I had just turned on the news as Kelly returned home from an afternoon outing. The television station was broadcasting live a speech by former President, and now presidential candidate, Donald Trump at an outdoor rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. This was last public event before the National Republican Convention a few days later, and there were rumors Trump would use the occasion to announce his vice presidential pick.

Trump was loose, relaxed and having fun--always a startling contrast to the recent tightly controlled barely-coherent appearances by Joe Biden. Biden's performance in the last debate had been excruciatingly sad. Clearly suffering from age-related dementia, Biden's performance was widely panned as a disaster for his campaign and it triggered widespread calls for him to step down and allow another candidate to run against Trump. 

Major newspapers, high level Democrats, and movie celebrities like George Clooney, published op-eds calling for Biden to do the right thing for the country and allow someone else to run, lest Democrats lose the presidency and major seats in Congress. Media openly speculated that Democrats would try to force Biden out in the upcoming and now likely "open" Democratic Convention. Democrats were in disarray and it looked like their party faced a looming disaster 

The momentum was all on Trump's side. It seemed inevitable that, absent some kind of dramatic change, he would win. This, despite the on-going and years-long effort by the left to convince the world that electing Trump was akin to electing Adolph Hitler. 

Literally:

The Supreme Court had just (correctly) ruled that some exercises of presidential power could not be made the subject of a criminal prosecution (such as speaking with cabinet officials) and had sent one of the major (and multiple) Trump-prosecutions back to the trial court. There would be no ruling before the election.  The decision triggered a deluge of articles condemning the Supreme Court for green-lighting Trump's use of "Seal Team Six" to assassinate his political opponents. Fear-mongering about a future Trump presidency reached a fever pitch.

Into this heated atmosphere strode Trump, clearly relishing the pre-convention rally before an adoring rural Pennsylvania crowd. 

As I watched, I was struck by how loose he was, joking with politicians in the crowd, jumping in and out of his prepared script. At one point, he broke away from his script and asked for a chart to be shown on the giant screen behind him to his right. It was an unscripted moment, and it took a second for the tech folks to put it on-screen. I chuckled at how the moment perfectly illustrated Trump's confidence and ease before crowds.

While Trump was looking at, and commenting on, the chart behind him, my wife Kelly began talking about her errands.  I paused the television to listen to her. I wouldn't miss anything since the broadcast would begin right where I paused it. Incredibly, I paused the broadcast less than a second before the failed assassin fired his first bullet.  

Kelly talked briefly and then encouraged me to get back to the broad cast. I hit the "play" button.

For no more than a second, everything was normal. Trump was talking. But then, almost immediately, you could hear several "pops." I immediately recognize the sound as gun fire (we hear it all the time in Richmond). For a moment that seemed to last forever, Trump, the crowd, security, all seemed confused. 

Then, flash, Trump was on the ground unearth a team of secret service agents.

Kelly and I were stunned. Neither we nor anyone else knew what had happened or was happening. The crowd in the stands behind Trump were looking down on the pile of secret service agents. Then someone screamed. Then Trump stood up, seemingly fine, but with obvious blood smeared around his right ear.

Kelly and I both knew there had been gunfire. But, for all we knew, the gunfire had been in a nearby parking lot, and the secret service agents took Trump down as a precaution, injuring his ear as they did so.  That was Kelly's first thought.

There was no way someone had actually shot at, much less hit the president. 

Then, the startled broadcaster at Fox News, themselves still trying to figure out what was happened, replayed the video. Then, played it again in slow motion. It showed Trump speaking, looking up and behind at the screen, and then suddenly putting his hand up to his ear and wincing. 

Former President Trump had not been injured in the fall. Trump had been shot, hit in the ear, and somehow survived.

The Fox broadcast continued to show a chaotic scene. Not the crowd--all of whom seemed oddly calm if worried and confused. The chaos was the effort to get Trump to a safe location. The secret service agents seemed to be lifting Trump (we now know they were likely trying to keep him down), with the bleeding Trump standing and defiantly raising his first in the air and yelling something to the crowd. Someone else might have simply waved to indicate "I'm ok." 

Donald Trump was repeatedly yelling "fight!" 

A crowd of agents assisted Trump down the steps of the stage and into a black SUV. Off it went.  Kelly and I were both terribly upset and confused. But more than anything, I remember being extremely angry. An emotion I allowed myself instead of grief only because, by some miracle, the bullet had missed. 

For the last year, academics I knew and had (previously) respected had tried to contort the Constitution into disqualifying the leading presidential candidate (a proposition about the 14th amendment that the Supreme Court unanimously rejected). There were insane attempts by the Biden Administration to use the criminal process to place their major opposition candidate in jail. There had been the increasingly strident denunciations of Trump and anyone supporting him as seeking to destroy the country and permanently end democracy. This was going to happen they cried unless Trump was somehow stopped.

All of it leading, almost inevitably, to a bullet speeding towards the head of Donald Trump at a political rally. I was furious. I still am.

It took over an hour before we learned that bullets had struck and killed a father in the crowd. Others had been hurt as well. The gunman, meanwhile, had been killed by officers who had grievously failed to protect the president. 

We soon learned that the shooter had managed to carry an AR-15 up onto a roof near the event, gaining an unobstructed shot at the President. Experts say the shot was an easy one for anyone with minimal training. Why did Trump live? Who knows. His unscripted turn to the right to look at the screen behind him may have saved his life--the difference between a bullet in the brain and a losing a piece of his ear. Or perhaps a 5mph wind gust at the last second. Or perhaps the merciful hand of God. 

Or all the above.

As if this writing, we know almost nothing about the 20 year old gunman--who's name I've already forgotten. Nor do we know why security failed so spectacularly. Both are subjects of on going investigation.

But one thing I know. Something all of us have always known.

Democracy fails when major political parties insist that their opponents are evil. Whether by a bullet, or by jailing opponents, or by suppressing speech, or by stuffing ballot boxes. One way or another, democracy will die. 

Democracy requires the major players to concede the democratic legitimacy of their opponents and every American citizen that supports them. This means believing that losing an election to your fellow Americans is not the end of the world. Try again next time.

Of course, you may conclude that your opponents are so evil that democracy must be abandoned, replaced by fraud or force of arms. Fine. Good luck to you.

But those of us who still believe in the American project, the American Constitution, and the basic decency of 99% of Republicans and Democrats, oppose you.

And we will fight.