The attempted assassination of presidential candidate Donald Trump during a July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, has taken center stage regarding the 2024 elections, altering the political narrative. In the coming days and weeks, there will be much speculation about whether the Secret Service was derelict in its duty for allowing this shooting to take place.
Even before Trump was fired at, he tried to portray himself as a victim of the 34 criminal charges against him. Once he was convicted, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling, granted him immunity from prosecution for any “official acts” he carried out as president.
In light of the shooting, Trump is trying to portray himself as a martyr, saying, “I should be dead,” in order to swing the elections even more in his favor. A certain sector of the U.S. ruling class, through the corporate media it owns, is not only promoting sympathy toward him but also placing the shooting within the broader context of the ongoing gun violence debate.
During his July 13 press conference in reaction to the shooting of Trump, President Joe Biden stated: “There is no place in America for this kind of violence or any violence ever, period. No exceptions. We can’t allow this violence to be normalized.” (The Hollywood Reporter, July 15)
Who is Biden trying to kid with false rhetoric? An estimated 43,000 people died in the U.S. in 2023 from guns, whether by murder, suicide or other motives. (independent.co.uk, July 15)
As the old saying goes, “Violence is as American as apple pie.” And for Biden, also called “Genocide Joe,” to decry gun violence is the height of utter hypocrisy.
He has justified since October 7 supplying the most terrifying weapons to apartheid Israel, especially a multitude of tons of bombs, to commit daily massacres of Palestinians in Gaza, including tens of thousands of children.
Trump, who excoriated Biden during their first presidential debate last month for not “finishing the job” to exterminate the Palestinians, is just as violently pro-Israel.
At least 120 Palestinians were killed by U.S. bombs with hundreds more wounded on the day of the Trump shooting. Where was the outrage by the corporate mainstream media for this ongoing targeting of civilians? Utter silence.
What does this mean for the working class?
No matter how many millions of workers hate Trump, which is certainly justified, individual actions like the one taken by the gunman who targeted Trump, regardless of the motivation, are never a substitute for the workers mounting an independent class resistance to the program of all sectors of the ruling class.
Any nuanced differences between Trump and Biden do not disguise the fact that both are pro-ruling class and anti-working class, no matter their political affiliations.
If workers want to stop fascism, which Trump symbolizes, they have to look beyond the electoral arena. The decay of U.S. imperialism at home and abroad is the root cause of mass violence — whether it’s state-sanctioned violence by the police or the Pentagon or random violence. Gun violence is a class issue, not a moral issue, and will not go away after the November election.
Workers may feel powerless right now to stop Trump, but the working class has the most power of any class – that is the power to stop production and to bring the capitalist system to a halt.