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The shooting of Donald J. Trump was the first of its kind in the social media era and followed through an avalanche of glossy images, wealthy eyewitness accounts and livid, fearful reactions.
By Jonathan Weisman
Follow the news on Trump’s assassination attempt.
It was the first assassination attempt on a current or former United States president in the age of social media, and conspiracy theories, accusations, and crusading strategies spread at the speed of the internet, much faster than the actual facts of what happened to the former United States president. President Donald J. Trump’s crusade in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 plunged the country into deep grief. Conspiracy theories would proliferate, of course, and Abraham Zapruder’s film about Kennedy’s final moments would be studied for decades. But first, there is the duel. The Killers of Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 would shake the public conscience and leave Americans wondering what would happen to their country.
But in the age of memes, X-posts, truths, threads and TikTok, introspection will never be the dominant vibe. Anger, guilt and even comedy were the watchwords of 2024. A photo of Mr. Trump, fist raised, American flag flying above his head, have become iconic in an instant.
A few minutes after the first television images of Mr. Trump clutching his injured ear on Saturday, left-wing voices called it a hoax, although they were barely known.
Soon after, much bigger names on the right, including Sen. J. D. Ohio’s Vance, a finalist to be Mr. Trump, had maintained the argument that Democrats had set the bar for an assassination attempt by running the 2024 election. like an attempted murder. battle between the forces of democracy and the foot soldiers of fascism. Of course, someone is going to take a risk, those conservatives said.
Before he knew anything about the guy who pulled the trigger, Trump, joining Vance and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, blamed President Biden and Democrats.
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