A bloodied, defiant Trump could become the defining image of the US election

The shots fired at Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday are being investigated as an assassination attempt of the former president and current Republican presidential nominee.

Assassination attempts on presidents and presidential nominees are littered throughout American history. What happened in Pennsylvania is horrifying, but sadly not surprising.

I’ve been really struck by how many senior political figures in the United States came out after the shooting and said political violence has no place in America. US President Joe Biden said violence of this kind is “ unheard of ” in the US.

That is pretty astounding. The United States was founded on political violence, and incidents of political violence mark its entire history.

In fact, Biden began his political career framing himself as the political heir to the murdered Kennedy brothers – President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963, and Robert F. Kennedy, assassinated in 1968.

However, for this incident to occur in this moment, given the volatile nature of the presidential campaign so far and the deep divisions in the United States, is deeply concerning.

The way the shooting has been weaponised on social media so quickly – with conspiracy theories unfolding in real time – means the potential for this kind of violence to escalate is very high.

You only have to look at the insurrection of the US Capitol on January 6 2021 to see how quickly political violence can explode in the US.

This is due, at least in part, to the way violent rhetoric has been cultivated quite deliberately by elements of the far right in recent years. In particular, undercurrents of political violence have simmered at Trump rallies since the beginning of his first run for the presidency in 2016.

The threat of violence has become central to Trump’s political image, to his appeal and to his supporter base. You only have to watch a few moments of every Trump rally and every Trump speech to hear him speak about violence, often in graphic detail and with great relish.

For instance, he has repeatedly referenced conspiracy theories when describing the attack against former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, in their home in 2022, as well as mocking him and joking about the attack .

This is a feature, not a bug, of the Trump campaign and the movement behind him.

And it has a real-world impact. A nationwide review conducted by ABC News (the US media organisation) in 2020 identified 54 criminal cases in which Trump himself had been invoked in “direct connection with violent acts, threats of violence or allegations of assault”.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Kevin Roberts, the president of the right-wing think tank Heritage Foundation (the architect of the Project 2025 plan to overhaul the US government under a second Trump presidency), talked about a “ second American Revolution ” that would “remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

Given how ever-present this threat of violence has become, it’s perhaps more surprising that an incident of this magnitude doesn’t happen more often, or hasn’t happened already.

A campaign-defining image

It’s also striking what a master of the political image Trump is. You can see this in the footage of the shooting in Pennsylvania: after Trump stands up, he raises his fist defiantly to have that image captured.

That image is of course going to define this moment, if not Trump’s entire presidential campaign.

There have been a series of tipping points in this campaign so far, and this may well be the decisive one. It could turn Trump from a martyr to a saint in the eyes of his supporters.

Watching how Trump, his campaign and the people around him use this narrative will be so important, especially in advance of the Republican National Convention, which is scheduled to start in Wisconsin in the coming days.

You can already see elements on the right – particularly among Trump’s supporters – attempting to use the assassination attempt to foster conspiracy theories as a rallying point for the former president.

Given the fall-out from Biden’s debate performance in recent weeks, a contrasting image of the two candidates is also emerging and could solidify further – even if it doesn’t reflect them accurately.

That image of Trump, bloodied with a raised fist, could certainly come to frame his entire campaign and rally support behind him.

It is entirely possible, then, that this becomes the moment when Trump won the election.

Emma Shortis is Senior Researcher in International and Security Affairs at The Australia Institute, an independent think tank.