A presidential race of increasing uncertainty
Each day has brought fresh uncertainty and drama to the presidential race between Vice President Harris and former President Trump, so the second attempt on the latter's life comes as no surprise, nor does the claim from Trump that Harris and President Biden are responsible.
On Monday, in comments to Fox News Digital, Trump said "their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country and they are the ones that are destroying the country — both from the inside and out."
The charge comes with little evidence, and he takes no account that his own inflammatory insults and derogatory accusations might be part of the violence that endangers his life. Placing the blame on those opposed to his demeaning of people, including his assertion about Haitians eating pets, is nothing new and it follows the same remarks he made after the first attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania in July.
Trump's running mate, JD Vance, doubled down on those charges during a speech at a dinner on Monday, stating that Democrats cannot call Trump a "threat to democracy" and a "fascist" and expect that violence would not follow. Nothing was said about Trump's use of the same words to assail Democrats.
While Trump has expressed no intention of toning down the heated comments, Biden said that the country must work to stop the ongoing violence. "America has suffered too many times the tragedy of an assassin's bullet," he said at the start of an address to the National HBCU Week Conference in Philadelphia. "It solves nothing. It just tears the country apart. We must do everything we can to prevent it and never give it any oxygen."
Harris, as she said after the first attempt on Trump's life, condemned political violence. "We all must do our part to ensure that this incident does not lead to more violence," Harris said on Sunday in her statement, adding that she was "deeply disturbed" by the apparent attempt on Trump's life.
Douglas Brinkley, a Rice University historian and author, summed up the situation, noting on Sunday that this presidential race has been a dramatic one. The year he said "has just unspooled in a chaotic and frightful fashion. It's impossible for anybody to get footing in their daily lives with a news cycle that is so constantly grim and absurd."
