The expected electoral bump for Donald Trump after the failed assassination attempt could be because of his raised fist show of strength, urging the crowd to “Fight, fight, fight” while bleeding and being ushered away from the podium by Secret Service agents. Or it could be because of voters’ sympathetic feelings towards someone who narrowly escaped death. Emotions are crucial to any election, and Trump will certainly play both the strong survivor and victim/martyr to the hilt.
Being sympathetic to Trump after the shooting is inevitable, as are comparisons between Trump’s narrow escape and Ronald Reagan’s. Del Quentin Wilber wrote in the Associated Press on July 14 about Reagan’s 1981 brush with death: “[T]he shooting generated massive sympathy from the American public for Reagan, who spent 13 days in the hospital before returning to the White House. But it did something else — it built a bond between the president and the public. They had seen a president who acted with grace and courage.” Wilber quotes journalist David Broder, who said years later, “He [Reagan] was politically untouchable from that point on. He became a mythic figure.”
Will this happen to Donald Trump? Will there be sympathy for a man who previously eschewed emotional bonds? Will Trump be seen as “a man of destiny” in conservative columnist Ross Douthat’s analysis and also become “a mythic figure” like Reagan?
Habitually, Trump exudes power, red and yellow power ties and all. The photo of his raised fist while being whisked away by Secret Service agents has to be a quintessential photo instinctively staged by a master of the visual. As described in Le Monde: “Despite the chaos and the agents urging him to evacuate, he gave his supporters a sign of vitality and determination. He raised his fist to the sky, articulating the word ‘fight!’ while blood streaked down his right cheek. The now iconic photo of this moment is of rare power,”
How will Trump use the shooting? His usual power trip? New-found sympathy? Or both?
Unlike with Reagan, it is not easy imagining sympathy for Donald J. Trump. In fact, emotions like sympathy or bonding with politicians are never clear. The recent New York Times op-ed by George Clooney is a striking example of the difficulty. In the first part, he’s all emotions: “I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him.” Despite his avowed love for Biden, Clooney then calls for the president to drop out of the election. “It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.” After the declaration of love, Clooney follows with political pragmatism.
If being loveable is no guarantee of winning votes, politicians certainly make efforts to be more human, more affectionate. Politicians want voters to bond with them. They want to use emotions to get elected. They want to merge emotions and pragmatism.
How to do that? Pets are a classic example. Franklin Roosevelt used his Scottish Terrier Fala in his 1944 campaign opening speech in a brilliant example of anthropomorphizing a pet for political purposes:
“These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala. Well, of course, I don’t resent attacks, and my family don’t resent attacks, but Fala does resent them. You know, Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers in Congress and out had concocted a story that I’d left him behind on an Aleutian island and had sent a destroyer back to find him – at a cost to the taxpayers of two or three, or eight or twenty million dollars – his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since. I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself … But I think I have a right to resent, to object, to libelous statements about my dog.”
Other examples of canine power: Richard Nixon used some of Roosevelt’s reasoning in referring to his Cocker Spaniel Checkers as a justifiable accepted gift in his legendary 1952 “Checkers Speech.” The Obama’s Portuguese Water Dog Bo got lots of media attention, and appeared in Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.
What about presidential bonding using children and grandchildren? Think of: Margaret Truman, David Eisenhower and Julie Nixon, John John and Caroline Kennedy, Amy Carter, Chelsea Clinton, Malia and Sasha Obama. While the private lives of the children were generally guarded, they appeared at events and in print as positive parts of the president’s image. (Hunter Biden is an outstanding negative as is Biden’s dog Commander.)
We don’t think of Trump in bonding terms. His MAGA followers prioritize his strength, not his emotions. Pets? No way. As columnist Frank Bruni wrote, “For Trump, all relationships are transactional and God’s creatures possess value only in accordance with their ability to elevate and enrich him.”
Trump’s children? They have created more mockery than sympathy. Donald Jr., Eric, Tiffany and Ivanka have been regularly satirized on Saturday Night Live. Trump’s relationship with his son Barron is certainly not positively paternal.
After the shooting, Trump will certainly profit from sympathy. (How long do you think he will continue to be seen in public with the bandage on his ear?) The man who egged on the crowd to violence on January 6 and rose to the presidency as a polarizing us versus them leader, wrote on his Truth Social media network platform after the assassination attempt: “In this moment, it’s more important than ever that we stand united, and show our true character as Americans….” He added; “It was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening.” His early subdued behavior at the Republican Convention has further invited sympathy.
Will people vote for Trump because of his projection of power or out of sympathy? His domination of the Republican Party is evident. He was given a hero’s ovation at the start of the Convention Winning the immunity case before the Supreme Court and having the Florida judge dismiss the secret documents case further demonstrate his power. No need for him to scream, yell or rant to confirm his dominant position. Trump is no longer the marginalized outsider he was even as president and Time’s Person of the Year.
Now he is the bloodied incarnation of the victim. As he once said; “In the end, they’re not coming after me. They’re coming after you — and I’m just standing in their way.” Well, they did come after him, and Trump survived. Now he can add the emotion of sympathy to his power(ful) mix.
Trump the Survivor is riding the crest of power and sympathy, leaving befuddled Democrats in his wake.
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