This was his first rally with new running mate JD Vance and since last week's assassination attempt.
Donald Trump has told a rally in Michigan that he "took a bullet for democracy" when an attempt was made on his life last week.
Attended by thousands, it was Trump's first rally with new running mate JD Vance - and first since he survived the assassination attempt.
He told a packed arena in Grand Rapids that Democrats have accused him of being "a threat to democracy" and, to huge applause, said he was ready to "take back the White House".
Many of those at the event, in the battleground state of Michigan, told the BBC that the assassination attempt - which killed an audience member and wounded two others - would not stop them from showing support for the Republican presidential nominee.
Some said they came precisely because of the shooting.
One of the few things that he understands is to accuse other people of exactly what he’s being accused of. If Trump gets called a threat to democracy, he’s going to accuse Biden of being “the real threat to democracy”.
It’s from Steve Bannon’s playbook called “cover the field in shit”, and it stops low-informed voters from easily determining what’s going on, as it plays into a prevailing narrative that all politicians lie. It’s brilliant, it’s wicked, and it’s quickly pushing us towards fascism.
Trump's intent is easy to judge because we've an adequate and reasonably consistent history of his actions.
The shooter's intent is tougher because it's clouded with judgement of his means. But, if Trump so obviously fights against democracy, it would seem a reasonable assumption that the shooter's intent was the preservation of democracy. And, they didn't just formulate, but carried out a plan that certainly would end in death in defense of democracy.
Regardless of judgement of the shooter's means, what do you think of his intent?
You're missing the part where "democracy" means what he wants it to mean and he hopes that everyone else thinks he means what they want it to mean, regardless of whether those meanings intersect.
For example, Russia, China, and at least two of the countries with "Democratic" in their official name are democracies. Technically.
This act that the Republicans are putting on right now, to make themselves seem more moderate than they really are, to appeal to centrists, is so unbelievably transparent. It's obviously bullshit, but what's terrifying is that it might actually work. Democrats appear unsettled, Republicans are unified. Trump's assassination attempt makes him seem sympathetic to many. The only thing left for the Republicans to do is convince voters that they've totally changed and that things are going to be different this time, and that it's not going to be like before, they promise. Unfortunately, like an abused spouse, many American voters might give Trump and Republicans that second chance. God help us all.
No, that's not true. They don't have to convince everyone, they only have to convince enough people. They know very well that many millions of Americans would never vote for them no matter what, but they also know that many millions of Americans will vote for them and millions more might, if properly persuaded.
The voting population has a collective memory of only a few months.
Where I live, we had some of the strictest and stupidest pandemic lockdowns in the western world. People protested the lockdowns, blamed the wrong level of government for implementing them, and then re-elected the party that DID implement the lockdowns with a very low voter turnout.
The restrictions had been lifted maybe months before the election, so the lockdowns were a distant memory for the fraction of the population that showed up to vote.
I'm semantically torn here. He did (narrowly) take a bullet and shooting on politicians is an attack on Democracy. On the other hand he's not exactly on friendly terms with this whole Democracy concept.... In case of friendly fire, can you say you took a bullet for your enemy?
Whelp, anyone who took bets on him acting like a war hero over this can now go collect your winnings - which is just more listening to Trump unfortunately.