When Donald Trump arrives this week at the Republican National Convention’s hall in Wisconsin, his supporters will greet a larger-than-life martyr who believes he was “handed a gift from God.”
“Donald Trump is going to appear in Milwaukee like Lazarus,” Ian Bremmer, a political scientist, said on CNN Sunday, comparing Trump to the character in the New Testament book of John who died but was brought back to life by Jesus.
The cult of Trump’s personality and the strength of his charisma with his MAGA base grew exponentially in an instant.
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“That is going to get far stronger on the back of this,” Bremmer, president and founder of Eurasia Group, a political risk research firm, predicted of the effect Saturday’s shooting at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania will have on Trump’s appeal with his supporters.
In the Biblical story of Lazarus, Jesus shows his ability to perform miracles by raising his friend from the dead. Republicans will have a similar figure in Trump, one they see as miraculously saved.
Duccio di Buoninsegna/Kimbell_Art_Museum/Wikimedia Commons“He thinks he was handed a gift from God. He can’t believe it,” a person who spoke to Trump on Sunday told The Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey, adding, “that’s totally not normal for him.”
Trump summoned the strength to urge his followers to “fight, fight, fight”—as blood pooled around his right ear and streaked down his face—in order to remind them of their movement’s mission to “make America great,” according to CNBC’s near-fatal, who interviewed Trump on Sunday.
Top Republicans, in near unison, lambasted Democrats for fueling anti-Trump rhetoric they say led to an attempt to take the former president’s life, even though federal law-enforcement officials have yet to identify a motive for the shooting by a 20-year-old man from Pennsylvania.
“I’ve been worried about this for a very, very long time,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a close Trump ally, said on Sunday as he embraced the emerging biblical narrative surrounding the near-fatal miss. “You know, if he wins, democracy is not going to end. He’s not a fascist. He represents a point of view that millions share. The rhetoric is way too hot.”
Trump will come to Milwaukee with the promise of a hero's welcome from his loyalists.
Brendan McDermid/ReutersSen. JD Vance (R-OH), who is on Trump’s short list to become his vice-presidential running mate, led the charge Saturday night, posting on social media that President Joe Biden and his campaign are squarely to blame for painting Trump as an “authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs.”
“That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination,” Vance said just days ahead of Trump’s formal acceptance of the Republican Party’s nomination to defeat Biden—assuming the president is able to reverse a rising tide of intra-party pressure to replace him atop the Democratic ticket.
Another leading contender to take the No. 2 slot on the GOP ticket, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), tweeted soon after the shooting: “God protected President Trump.”
While Republicans took to idolizing Trump more than ever following the attack, the Biden campaign and most Democrats, having pulled attack ads for the time being, expressed their sympathies and concerns about a potential security lapse ahead of both party’s national conventions.
“There will be a time to draw contrasts more starkly, but taking a moment to talk more about what we’re for than what we’re against could be good for everybody,” Democratic political communications strategist Jamal Simmons told The Daily Beast.
But with the Republican convention starting on Monday and the Democrats’ nominating forum set to begin in Chicago on Aug. 19, a political ceasefire isn’t likely to last too long.
“MAGA is still a threat but Democrats might not mention Trump while we sort through the personal pain of Saturday,” Simmons said.
