For Trump and his followers, the shooting cemented his status as a victimized folk hero, a messianic figure who would sacrifice himself to save the country from ruin. “They tried to jail him. They tried to kill him,” the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, wrote on X. “It will not work. He is indomitable.” …
Many Republicans blamed the left’s heated rhetoric for bringing the country to a boiling point. “Dems and their friends in the media knew exactly what they were doing with the “literally Hitler” bull—!” Trump Jr. wrote. To Democrats it was just as grimly obvious that it was Trump’s ongoing flirtation with political violence that led to this—that the president who once told violent militias to “stand back and stand by,” who ginned up the crowd that brutalized police on Jan. 6, 2021, couldn’t claim to be an innocent victim of the tinderbox he’d helped ignite….
Biden, now back at the White House, gave another statement denouncing violence. Trump announced that he would travel to Milwaukee as planned. “We will FEAR NOT, but instead remain resilient in our Faith and Defiant in the face of Wickedness,” he said in a social-media post. Yet the attempts to calm the waters were plainly too little too late: for America, the fear continues.