NEW YORK – The 2024 election campaign has a new iconic image Donald Trump, moments after narrowly avoiding serious injury or death from an assassin’s bullets, standing with his fist raised, lines of blood streaked across his face, an American flag billowing in the breeze behind him.

The bloodshed in Pennsylvania will leave a lasting mark on the American psyche, puncturing the veneer of security around the highest levels of presidential politics of magnetic screening, bulletproof limousines and heavily armed Secret Service agents. Even former presidents are not insulated from the violence that can erupt in everyday American life.

It was also a dramatic moment in American political history one that is sure to be replayed in video clips, still photographs and testimonial accounts throughout the course of this presidential campaign and in campaigns to come.

In a rare address from the Oval Office Sunday evening, President Joe Biden called on Americans to cool the temperature around political debate. The attack has already begun coursing through America’s partisan dialogue, as numerous Republicans have spoken out to condemn President Biden and the Democrats for creating a rhetorical environment conducive to the violence.

They point to dire warnings about the former president becoming a dictator and threatening democracy as examples of the overheated language that could inspire an assassin. In particular, they highlight leaked comments the president made in private to donors just last week about increasing the attacks on the former president’s record and putting a “bull’s-eye” on him.

They’ve tried to take him out in so many other ways, financially, they’ve tried to throw him in jail,” Donald Trump Jr said in a television interview on Sunday. “It’s almost as if they would love for this to happen. At least so far, however, the motives and political affiliations of the alleged assassin, 20-year-old Pennsylvania resident Thomas Matthew Crooks, are in doubt. They may ultimately defy an easy partisan narrative.

The former president’s oldest son went on to add that, after the assassination attempt, those on the left can no longer accuse the former president of culpability for the 6 January attack on the US Capitol. That violent episode took place hours after the then-president had held a rally just a few dozen blocks away, challenging the 2020 election results. (BBC) …[+]