In his near-desperate quest to regain the American presidency Donald Trump differs from many of his predecessors. He not only adores campaigning but lives for the adulation it confers. The crowd has a thrilling if not narcotic effect on his him, boosting his already inflated ego.
This craving for applause places him more in harm’s way than any candidate in recent memory, Trump vintage 2016 being an exception. Once Trump attained his goal that year, he appeared to lose interest in the actual office of the presidency. He loathed being cloistered and predictably came to snarl at any and all media that called his decisions into question. He chafed at the confines imposed by the White House and seemed at times to want nothing more than to return to the campaign trail. For him the presidency was a prison of sorts, a place from which he could not escape. It was no surprise that his temper, already notoriously bad, worsened. Yes, he was the boss, but where were was the applause? Nowhere because the White House is situated along the liberal axis that extends from Washington to New York City to Boston. No more hideous a place for Trump, who for decades was mocked and slighted in his native New York.
Then, suddenly, liberation – at least of a sort. He lost in 2020. Granted, he refused to accept the loss or to go quietly. Going quietly before any eventuality is not in the angry Trump’s combative DNA.
Yet in all this he immediately spotted a reward, a pot of gold. The U.S. Constitution would allow him to run again.
Eureka!
He could repeat 2016 but with even greater gusto, spawning many shades of hate and all manner of conspiracy theories. And he could again do all this before cheering throngs and assorted hecklers. He could return to his personal promised land. And his latest rallies have again made clear he craves this demagogue’s platform as much as the Oval Office, which if he regains it he will again find tedious.
Moral of the story: he is exposed to gunmen.
More exposed perhaps than any previous campaigner, since his public agenda is so crammed. Security concerns be damned, Trump pushes his flesh toward any loyalist who wishes to love him, albeit from a distance.
His adversary, rather sadly and through no fault of his own, is a suddenly very old man who cannot be counted on to speak lucidly let alone remember names. He can be pathetic to watch and listen to and Trump has many times mocked this old man’s weaknesses.
An irony since Trump himself is also an old man. But he doesn’t show it.
Some who profess to hate him nonetheless marvel at his sauntering brio. Legal woes? No matter. Trump merely dips into his well of converts and forges ahead.
Go tell the Secret Service and the FBI to protect such a man from crazies with guns. Trump himself can be a crazy with words and no doubt many Democrats privately wish his would be assassin had managed a more centered shot.
One thing is certain: America is uncertain to see the likes of a Trump, impresario-turned-politician, for years if not decades to come. He is unique in a way no man who has ever sought the presidency has ever been.
That he was not shot at before is of itself a miracle, especially in a country as traditionally gun-happy as the United States, a nation whose lawmakers repeatedly find a way of blocking serious gun control laws. People kill people, not guns, they say.
So it was, then, that one of these annoyed or madcap people tried to kill Trump, or at the very least slay his ear. Bullets found others instead. A sad old story.
Will Trump now become a recluse or heed security officials who demand he hide more frequently behind walls or limit his adulation quotient?
Not on your life, or his.
Again, this is what he lived for.
And it’s a show the ages will live to remember, the story of a zealous desperado intent on doing things his way and his way only, in God he trusts.
Or does he?
Unlikely, even if on this one occasion a passing deity stuck out its hand and, for no one’s sake in particular, deflects a bullet. Leaving Trump with untold future podiums to occupy.
