It is such an advantage for Trump that a first reaction to the assassination attempt against the former president was that it was set up before the public learned that a man was tragically killed and two others critically injured.

Trump and the Republicans are already milking this event in disgusting, despicable ways, actually blaming “liberals,” “Democrats”, and even President Biden for accurately warning that the twice impeached former Oval Office occupant is a threat to democracy.

The tactic is aimed at guilting Democrats to pull back on their accurate depictions of who Trump is and what he intends. Will Biden and the Democrats fall for it?

The other initial reaction was that Trump experienced what America experiences just about every day: a mass shooting. The day of this attack on Trump, four people were killed and nine others injured in a mass shooting in Alabama. “But you might not have heard about it because it’s the sort of thing that happens every single day in America,” writes former U.Ss Attorney and Muller Report prosecutor Andrew Weissmann. “It’s long past time we did something about that.”

“Our nation’s ease of access to firearms is a threat to our democracy,” writes David Hogg, an American activist and Stoneman Douglas HS shooting survivor, on his Threads.net site. “Not only as threats to those running for office but to our democratic norms that would be violated in retaliatory violence between political parties.

“We have to do more to end gun violence…there’s no conspiracy. The fact of the matter is it’s way too easy to access firearms in the United States and no one is safe. Not kids. Not teachers. Not parents. Not even a former president.”

The expression that comes to mind is “chickens come home to roost.” and “he made his bed, now lie in it.” Recall that Trump revoked President Obama’s gun safety measures for people with mental illness, which Obama put into place after the Sandy Hook school massacre, and cozies up to the NRA. But, of course, Trump and the Republicans will blame anything but the ubiquity of guns and the machismo American society attaches to guns (the only thing that is truly American Exceptionalism) and have the gall to complain about “rising crime.”

Instead of using this incident to guilt Biden and Democrats to “tone down” their accurate warnings that the 2024 election is in fact the most consequential of our lifetime (while the Republicans only scale up their fear-and-hate-mongering, scapegoating, vilifying), this should be a call to renew the ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammo.  There should also be a push to implement the other commonsense gun violence prevention proposals, including safe gun storage, liability for parents/guardians who do not (a 6-year-old just murdered a 3year-old), SMART ID so that only the registered, licensed, trained gun-owner can use it and Red Flag laws.

Instead, states like Pennsylvania advocate permitless open-carry so that a 20-year-old white male registered Republican had the ability to bring his AR-15 close enough to kill the the former president and current GOP candidate.

Instead, Trump will again use this incident to make the case for his persecution, his victimhood, elevate himself as the saved-and-selected-by-God savior, and engender sympathy enough to sway those double-haters, on-the-fencers and not-really-independent voters.

Trump now has a replacement image for the mug shot which he thinks engenders support of young Black men who feel abused by the unJustice System, of his fist in the air as he pronounces, “fight” – a strong, heroic figure to contrast to the “feeble, weak, old” Joe Biden.

When Trump says the incident has made him “rethink” and call for “uniting the country,” he means uniting around him. By “unifying” he means ending the prosecutions into his unprecedented attempts to overthrow the government. What he doesn’t mean is for stopping his attacks on his political enemies who he calls “vermin,” deserving of violent retribution.

Once again, Trump has managed to overtake the headlines – eclipsing news about Biden leading the world at the NATO summit or Biden’s agenda for a second term (ban assault weapons; lead the world on clean energy; restore Roe v. Wade; sign John Lewis Voting Rights Act; expand Social Security and Medicare; end medical debt; raise the minimum wage; pass the PRO Act for workers; make child tax credit permanent; $35 insulin cap for all;  build more housing; invest in child care and elder care) or focus on the threat Trump’s Project 2025 poses (which the cowardly Trump actually pretends to “know nothing about, have no idea who’s behind it”.)

“Luckiest defendant in the world” as one legal expert put it on cue after faux Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the Mar-a-Lago stolen classified documents case, while his Imperial Supremes immunized him against criminal prosecution, so he can reiterate his claims of “hoax,” “witch hunt”, “lawfare” (which he uses to justify his intention to weaponize his DOJ).

You know the expression “there are those who were born on third base and think they hit a triple?” Throughout his life, Trump was born with three runs on the board and the umpires’ rulebook banning them from ever calling him out.

If Trump is the luckiest defendant ever, Biden is the unluckiest candidate with everything going against him.

For Biden, the apt expression is “with friends like these who needs enemies.” Democrats continue to shoot themselves in their own circular firing squad, not only bloodying Biden but any candidate who would take the top spot, especially Vice President Kamala Harris. (Trump is already demeaning her as “Laffin’ Kamala”).

Democrats should not fall for it. They should keep the focus on where it should be: Donald Trump is a lawless wannabe dictator, Putin’s useful idiot, who has no regard for the Constitution, the Rule of Law or democracy, who would enact the Project 2025 laundry list of undemocratic, racist, misogynist, actions that would send the USA back to the Dark Ages of kings and witches, who is only running for personal profit and to stay out of prison, and would happily let others establish their theocracy, their kleptocracy, their oligarchy.