The Crisis of Politicians’ Rote “Relief” over Trump Surviving July 13 Gunfire.

At approx 4:25pm on Saturday July, 13, having just returned home from my part-time job, I turned on my TV to ABC News. It was extraordinary timing because when Trump was holding forth at a rally in Butler PA, Correspondent Rachel Scott had just began to report about the the sounds, assumed to have been gun fire, during the rural Pennsylvania political rally and the U.S. Secret Service leaping to cover and protect Trump. 

The incident was colossal, was happening in real time, and surprised me. The coverage was enough. I was neither shocked nor saddened.

Most middle age viewers’ eyes glaze over at that point. I knew that the attack on a former president was rare and had national, and national security consequences. Once 20 minutes passed, Years have passed since TV networks provided hour-by-hour coverage. That must have been on January 6^th 2020.

And I needed to see no more.

The wrinkle is that Mr. Trump has spent years being toxic, and proved himself as not fit to be a public servant, surely not the U.S. president. Before, while in-office and afterward, Mr. Trump gave and gives centrists and middle Americans ample reasons to dislike him. His toxic, vice-ridden and narcissistic persona affirms and emboldens bigotry and worse. So his having been shot didn’t sadden or upset me.

Furthermore, in a culture where we have more firearms than citizens, where Trump hugs the National Rifle Association’s stance against basic-sense constraints on firearms, and gun massacres are perversely routine, to be shocked that firearms violence struck Trump was naïve.

I know that it’s verboten to “say so,” but, given the threat, which many reasonable Americans know that Trump poses to democracy, and semblance of American unity, that attack didn’t shock, or aggrieve me.

Not to have a Trump remain a threat to the U.S. and global democratic order, would be a relief. To calm the Secret Service, knowing that that person remains alive drives me toward The Serenity Prayer.

Aspiring to resume practicing journalism and knowing that the code of ethics calls for avoid bias. But this incident didn’t sadden. As for the TV coverage, by 5:00pm after having changed the channel, I returned to ABC hoping for something different. (My TV antenna provides few network channels.) Alas, it and probably every TV network was providing hour-by-hour coverage. It became tiresome rapidly. Surely the gravity of the incident drove news producers and executive producers tell anchors to fill air time.

I find former politicians’ social media posts, which condemned violence, and showed  gratitude for Trump’s safety strained credulity. Each of the democratic and centrist officials knows the visceral threat, which Mr. Trump poses. I know there are unwritten rules of rhetoric, and politics that deem that tone of message. These officials “have to” do these.