During CNN’s coverage of the assassination attempt on 2024 Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, The Atlantic Senior Editor and CNN Senior Political Analyst Ronald Brownstein stated that Trump can say that people on the left are going after him or “say that this ought to be a wake-up call for all of us, and we ought to pull back from the brink of this hyper, hyper-polarized rhetoric,” and “His instinctive reaction was remarkable in some ways, but also was like fight, fight, fight. And that was what he said, even as he showed great personal courage, in kind of — and a sense for the dramatic in the moment in standing up.”
Brownstein began by discussing other threats and violent incidents, including the shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) saying, “There’s no question the direction we are headed as a society and the question of whether this is a moment of just kind of another step on a downward spiral or a moment in which both parties and a broad range of Americans try to pull back from the brink.”
He added that we don’t know the motive of the shooter, and it could be completely incoherent.
Brownstein further stated, “It’s a dangerous period between now and the election. It’s a dangerous period between the election and the Inauguration. You’ve had Trump allies preemptively saying…that the election will be stolen. We’ve had extraordinary rhetoric. I’ve seen a number of Trump allies and defenders today basically say, well, what did you expect given what Democrats are saying about Trump? Donald Trump calls Democrats Communists and fascists and vermin and says that they are trying to destroy the country. So, we’ve got — we have a pattern now in which millions and millions of Americans view each of these elections in apocalyptic terms and believe that victory by the other side will destroy the America they know and believe in. And, look, we are deeply polarized and there are reasons for people to feel that a victory by the other side will, in fact, threaten policy preferences or other values that they hold. But that has to be fought out at the ballot box. And, like I said, there’s no question the trajectory we’re on. It didn’t have to be this. It could have been an attempt at one of the judges in the Trump cases. We are going to see more of this unless there is a collective effort to see less of it.”
After the discussion turned to the Trump campaign and the Republican Convention, he stated, “I think they have a big choice at the convention. His core message over, really, throughout his career, but certainly since his indictments, has been that they, broadly defined, liberals, the left, the deep state are going after me because I am standing up for you. There are people, there are Republicans and conservatives on Twitter who are already making that case, and it would not be shocking if that was the message that he emphasized. There’s also the opportunity to go in a different direction here and to basically say that this ought to be a wake-up call for all of us, and we ought to pull back from the brink of this hyper, hyper-polarized rhetoric, again, calling his opponents fascists and Communists, at the same time that some refer to him as another Hitler. So, he has a big choice in how he responds to this. His instinctive reaction was remarkable in some ways, but also was like fight, fight, fight. And that was what he said, even as he showed great personal courage, in kind of — and a sense for the dramatic in the moment in standing up. So, I think he has a real choice to make in the days ahead about the message he sends to his followers, because there are certainly many people in his orbit, people who are supporting him, who are essentially using or kind of weaponizing this immediately to kind of underscore the case that Democrats are somehow un-American, when, in fact, what we are dealing with is a deeply — is a problem that extends across the political spectrum, and is taking us all to a place that I don’t think most Americans want to live.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
