The shooting in Pennsylvania is the fruit of the toxic tree Trump, and consecutive US administrations, have cultivated. It’s time our headlines focus on what actually matters.
Karma often comes with a sting, as the old saying goes. After eight years of stoking division, Donald Trump almost got a taste of the chaos he helped create. He was on the verge of experiencing the kind of horror faced by 378,000 US students who have died from guns since the Columbine High School massacre in 1999.
This time, Trump nearly found himself in the same dire straits as over 37,000 Palestinians—who lost their lives as he cheered on Israel to “finish the problem” with bombs proudly stamped Made in the USA, and literally signed off by a Republican cheerleaders in Washington.
To this date, four US presidents—Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and JFK—have been assassinated, and attempts have been made on others, including Teddy Roosevelt, Reagan and now Trump.
Violence permeates every layer of American politics, both domestically and internationally. However, it’s the particular brand of violence, one that the US has exported across the globe, which ironically captures the most headlines when it boomerangs back onto American soil.
The standard responses to such events are painfully predictable. Allies of the “free world” are quick to voice their outrage, yet the condemnations from US policymakers are strikingly uniform and riddled with hypocrisy.
Barack Obama, the former US president, was one of the first Democrats to condemn the attempt on Trump’s life, declaring, “there is absolutely no place for political violence in our democracy”. This statement comes from a leader who, in 2016 alone, authorised the dropping of 26,171 bombs on Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan—averaging nearly three bombs every hour, every day. Apparently, for Obama this did not qualify as “political violence”.
Trump’s 2025 opponent Joe Biden, ever the statesman, was also quick off the mark to wish Donald Trump a speedy recovery, stressing with all due gravity that “there’s no place for this kind of violence in America” and that “we must unite as one nation to condemn it.”
It is quite the line. Laden with patriotism that conveniently stops at the water’s edge—because, let’s face it, it doesn’t stretch quite far enough to encompass the 70,000 tons of bombs, a number that surpasses that of World War II, raining down on Palestinian children in Gaza.
Here’s Joe, extending concern for Trump. Yet, this same Joe Biden did more than just stand by; he actively facilitated a hefty $17 billion in aid to Israel. All the while, he turned a blind eye, or perhaps diplomatically squinted, at the massacre in Gaza.
According to a conservative estimate by the medical journal Lancet, factors such as diseases could lead to as many as 186,000 deaths in the long run, even if the conflict ceases right now—this figure represents 8% of Gaza’s population, predominantly women and children. And indeed, the International Court of Justice is investigating these actions as what they are: genocide.
The US has long exported violence on a massive scale—against those in distant lands deemed adversaries, against entire populations considered collateral in the games of control and domination. And president Joe? Bless him, with memory perhaps dimmed by the many years, fumbles names at the best of times. Mistaking President Zelensky for Putin? That is a gaffe that hints at a deeper malaise: perhaps forgetting that violence, that very word, should apply universally.
When this violence turns inward, catching those at the helm unawares, the shock is palpable. The same politicians who have never flinched at authorising drone strikes are suddenly champions against domestic violence. It is a stark about-face, revealing a ruling class stunned to find that the violence they themselves have sown so liberally abroad has taken root in their own backyard.
Fidel Castro could have told them a thing or two about this. In the documentary 638 Ways to Kill Castro, Channel 4 details the numerous attempts by the CIA to assassinate him. This obsession with eliminating perceived threats really shows the lengths to which American power will stretch to maintain control.
And if you need a primer on how deep this goes, William Blum’s Killing Hope provides a comprehensive account of more than 50 cases of America’s covert and overt military endeavours from the 1940s to 2003, a record of leaders who lie as easily as they breathe, endorsing terror and assassinations with a handshake and a smile, all while waxing lyrical about democracy and peace.
Trump’s knack for stirring the pot isn’t exactly news. His rallies were battlegrounds where he would casually suggest handling protesters with a bit of the old rough and tumble. His racist, sexist words, like petrol on a bonfire, have turned public discourse into a veritable inferno.
Yet, when the heat turns back on him, suddenly it is all about being the victim, crying foul over the very flames he has fanned. And, true to form, he will milk this incident for all it’s worth, turning it into a rallying cry for his base—a masterclass in spinning adversity into political gold.
The shooting in Pennsylvania—this latest twist in the Trump madness—is not just some bolt from the blue. It’s the fruit of the toxic tree he, and consecutive US administrations, have been watering all this while. To stand there, mouth agape, wondering how his own garden grew such thorns is either willful ignorance or plain old delusion.
Then there is of course the US’ gun problem. Every day 327 people, including 23 children, are shot in the United States. Of those, on average, 117 will die. It is a staggering legacy of a nation where the right to pack heat too often trumps the right to live without fear of getting shot.
Luckily, Trump has promised to chuck any restrictions on guns right out the window at his first chance in office in 2025, promising that “every single Biden attack on gun owners and manufacturers will be terminated in my very first week back in office, perhaps my first day”.
Meanwhile, American children and youth keep catching bullets—tragedies that might make the local news, if they are lucky. The bigwigs? Cocooned by layers of security, they spar over the fine print of the Second Amendment, heavily influenced by the deep pockets of gun lobby groups that enrich both Republicans and Democrats alike. These leaders remain untouched by the bloodshed that policies and polemics, shaped by these very lobbies, continue to spill.
In January, after nearly 36 hours of silence and a day after his Republican rivals addressed the school shooting in Iowa that took the life of a sixth grade student and injured others, Trump said:
“It’s just horrible, so surprising to see it here. But have to get over it, we have to move forward.”
So perhaps for once, we might take his advice. After all, there are far more pressing issues that demand our attention.
The genocide in Gaza, the invasion of Ukraine and the famine in Congo, for example, are some of the real tragedies that should dominate our headlines, not the misfortune of a man who, along with his Republican colleagues and Democratic adversaries, has played a key role in perpetuating a global culture of assassination, hostility and division.
