At 6:13 p.m. ET Saturday, it was exactly seven days since Thomas Matthew Crooks scrambled onto a warehouse rooftop in Butler, Pennsylvania, slipped his finger around the trigger of his father’s AR-15, and fired off several rounds.
Those seven days have transformed the political landscape of America. In just one week, we’ve witnessed a series of events so dramatic, so seismic, that they’ve redefined the battle lines of the upcoming election, now just 107 days away. And here in the eye of this political storm stands Donald Trump, fist still raised, and stronger than ever.
Consider too the extraordinary timing—the shooting happened two days before the Republican National Convention, an event that comes around only once every four years. Two days!
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At a talk with Georgetown University students, Trump’s co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita (responsible for stoking the Swift Boat controversy that partly sank John Kerry’s presidential hopes) declared they had found at least 20 paths to victory. Joe Biden, on the other hand, finds himself isolated and beleaguered, grappling with COVID-19 in Rehoboth, Delaware after forgetting the name of his Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, whom Biden referred to as “the Black man”, and facing mounting calls for his withdrawal.
It’s a narrative that reads like a fever dream of two men on diverging paths. Trump, the embattled former president, aged 78, has harnessed the chaos with renewed vigor. His base, emboldened by his resilience, sees him as a religious figure born again and ready to reclaim the mantle of leadership. Meanwhile, Biden’s presidency teeters on the edge, besieged not only by the virus but by internal dissent.
“He sounds like shit, because he’s not feeling well,” his campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon, remarked to staffers on a recent call. Not words a supporter ever wants to hear about an 81-year-old candidate. The once unifying figure now finds himself at odds with the Democrats’ most influential voices, including Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi. As of Friday night, 37 Democratic lawmakers have publicly called for Biden to step aside. On X a new hashtag was trending: #Passthetorch.
Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez went on the defensive and took to Instagram to advocate that Biden remain on the ballot. It’s worth noting that the congresswoman’s arguments focused less on the candidate and more on the serious legal challenges that the GOP would mount if the ticket changed.
“I have not seen an alternative scenario that does not set us up for enormous peril,” said Ocasio-Cortez, “Republicans, they mount that legal challenge, [then] the possibility of our elections being decided by a Supreme Court ruling skyrocket.”
Every day, every news cycle, feels magnified. The media landscape is a battlefield, each headline a grenade, each tweet a firecracker. O’Malley Dillon advised staffers, the very people monitoring the campaign, to stop watching cable news.
Trump’s defiance, his refusal to go quietly into the night, has turned every setback from his legal woes to an attempt on his life, into a rallying cry. And this week, after the long-teased reveal of J.D Vance as his running mate, the political pundits have been forced to admit Trump’s path to victory, once seen as a long shot, now looks plausible. Like Jesus, he has risen.
Biden’s fall is equally compelling. The president, once the beacon of hope and stability, is now recast as King Lear, detached from reality and raging in his beach house. His battle with COVID is compounded by the infighting that threatens to tear his party apart. Biden’s own fist raised against those he once counted as allies—Adam Schiff, Sherrod Brown, George Clooney, and now Seth Moulton, the appealing 45-year old Democratic congressman from Massachusetts. Moulton’s accusation must have cut especially deep with the confession that President Biden, once Moulton’s mentor, repeatedly failed to recognize him at the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings last month.
In the next 107 days, this sense of panic will only increase as every action, every decision and every misstep is scrutinized. Trump and Democrats are on a collision course, and so is our country.
Good luck America.
