After decades without political violence against a major party presidential candidate, the US has seen it twice in two months, with former President Donald Trump the target both times.
In mid-July, he was nearly shot in the head by a gunman at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The 20-year-old assailant was shot and killed by a sniper.
Two months later, while golfing on a Sunday afternoon, he was apparently targeted by another would-be assassin, according to the FBI, and a suspect is now in custody.
Investigators said a man armed with an AK-47-style rifle waited in bushes while Trump was playing golf at a West Palm Beach golf course, and that a Secret Service agent spotted the suspect and opened fire.
Over the past few years, Americans seem to have had to periodically adapt to a new normal in politics, big and small: Our public debate has become coarser, partisan divisions have become sharper and more entrenched, and candidates are being held to lower standards of behavior.
Perhaps such attacks are an inevitable new normal given the nationwide epidemic of gun violence, but for now, it’s still shocking.
“Violence has no place in America,” Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s Democratic opponent in the election, said in a statement after the Florida attack.
The details of the assassination attempt, particularly the identity and motives of the perpetrator, will ultimately determine its impact on American politics, but for now, regardless of the vice president’s comments, this kind of violence seems increasingly common in America today.
In his first statement since the assassination attempt, Donald Trump promised that nothing would slow him down or cause him to capitulate.
The response fits into a campaign in which the former president has often argued that he was persecuted and targeted for speaking out for “forgotten” Americans. “Fight, fight, fight,” he uttered after his first assassination attempt in July, became a rallying cry for his supporters.
“They’re not after me, they’re after you,” Trump likes to say. “I’m just getting in the way.”
Now the former president has another dramatic example he can use to make his point.
But this latest incident may not have the same emotional impact as the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The attack took place at a public rally watched by television cameras as the former president appeared bloody and defiant, leaving one supporter dead and two wounded.
Because the incident occurred on Trump’s golf course, the former president is far from any immediate danger, and the lack of graphic footage being broadcast repeatedly for days may make a difference in how much of an impact it has on the national conscience.
But at the very least, the assassination attempt will generate new headlines and provide a temporary respite from the tough recent days for the former president’s campaign.
Trump’s defensive, shaky performance in last week’s debate with Harris, his criticism of his relationship with conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer and his Sunday morning social media tirade against singer Taylor Swift will likely be brushed aside.
Sunday’s drama may have been shocking, but with just over seven weeks left in the presidential election, more developments are likely to occur.