TRUMP COULD BE A SYMPATHETIC FIGURE NOW, BUT HE CAN'T HELP SABOTAGING HIMSELF

Yesterday there was a second attempt on Donald Trump's life. The would-be shooter, Ryan Routh, registered as an unaffiliated voter in North Carolina in 2012 and voted in the state's Democratic primary that year, but he also tweeted his support for Trump in 2016. He turned against Trump during his presidency and gave money to Democratic presidential candidates in 2019 and 2020, among them Tulsi Gabbard from his adopted state, Hawaii, but he turned against Gabbard as well, as you can see from this collection of his now-deleted tweets. In recent years, as those tweets make clear, Routh became obsessed with defending Ukraine, and to a lesser extent Taiwan. He had crackpot notions about using Afghan soldiers as a foreign legion in both countries. According to the collected tweets, he wanted Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramasawamy to unite as a ticket in opposition to Trump this year. But he also spent a great deal of time trying to persuade pop stars -- Bruno Mars, Sting, U2, Elton John, Five for Fighting, the Dave Matthews Band -- to record a pro-Ukraine anthem, and he even offered his own lyrics for a song to be called "We Are One."

Also, Routh was arrested in 2002 after a run-in with law enforcement in North Carolina; among other things, he was charged with possession of a weapon of mass destruction, namely a fully automatic machine gun. According to Wired, the charging officer in the case, Tracy Fulk,

says Routh was well known for getting into armed confrontations with police. “I wasn’t the only one who had a standoff with him,” she says. “We always knew he had weapons.” Guilford County court records show Routh was charged dozens of times, often for driving-related offenses, going back to the early 1980s. Asked why he wasn’t in jail, Fulk says, “All we can do is arrest them and then obviously it goes into the court system and they decide all of that. It’s frustrating at times.”

But this is America, so of course he could get his hands on another gun.

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When I think about assassination attempts on Republicans, I think about this photo:

That's Ronald Reagan in the hospital after being shot, wearing pajamas and a bathrobe. Five months earlier, Reagan had won an election in which his opponents had described him as a bloodthirsty anti-Communist madman who'd get us into World War III. His rhetoric made that a reasonable fear. But here he was, humbled and vulnerable-looking. Reagan's public image was very carefully managed, so we know that this photo op happened because Reagan's aides wanted him to be seen this way. And it worked: In the weeks following the assassination attempt, Reagan's approval rating rose to 68%.

Donald Trump and his advisers don't understand the lesson to be learned from this.

When the shooting in Pennsylvania took place a couple of months ago, within seconds Trump tried to stage-manage the public response. He rose from the ground with his fist in the air and repeatedly chanted the word "Fight!" That had a strong appeal to the kinds of voters who were already inclined to vote for him. However, he probably needs at least some voters who would like to see him show vulnerability, the way Reagan did. But Trump's father and his mentor, Roy Cohn, taught him never to look vulnerable, so he squandered his first opportunity to capitalize on an assassination attempt. He showed vulnerability in the first part of his acceptance speech at the Republican convention, but then he devoted the majority of the speech to airing the same old grievances he always airs.

When pundits said the assassination attempt probably guaranteed him a landslide win in November, they assumed that the shooting would help him appeal to voters' common humanity. But Trump blew it. He just wanted to look like a tough guy.

And he's about to blow it again. He won't pause to do a soft-focus interview in which he humanizes himself. He's pivoting right back to this:

Former President Donald Trump plans to visit Springfield, Ohio, "soon," a source familiar with the planning said.

He and his running mate spread gasoline by claiming falsely that Haitian immigrants are eating pets in Springfield, and now Trump is headed there to light a match.

Trump can't bear to look like anything other than an aggressor, even at a moment when he'd benefit politically from a different look. That's one big reason why he's losing.