
Political candidates aren’t always seen by 19,000 people in big sexy arenas like Madison Square Garden.
They also play the rubber chicken circuit at little outdoor makeshift venues of a few hundred or a thousand people in rural America. These are places you would never visit unless you were looking for votes. Think “County Fair.”
So it was for Donald Trump one ordinary day last summer. He was on an outdoor plywood stage in rural Pennsylvania looking for votes from plain folk.
He was just a few minutes into his stump speech, or his stump speech du jour. Trump is not a polished speaker but he speaks from his heart and with his hands. He often strays from the strictures of his teleprompter, sometimes to the point where you wish he wouldn’t.
What happened next was initially trivialized by Associated Press, apparently to avoid martyring or heroizing the man. They reported:
“Loud noises rang through the crowd.”
One of those loud noises instantly kills a man standing behind Trump. Another loud noise wounds another person. And another wounds another. Altogether, eight loud noises come from the shooter and two from the Secret Service to neutralize him.
One loud noise goes through Trump’s ear, missing his cranium by half an inch. His hand instinctively goes to his shredded ear even before he is conscious of the pain there. He pulls his hand away to look at it, and sees the blood. It was only then that he knew he’d been shot.
Involuntarily, Trump does what anybody – and any body – would do. He falls to the floor behind the podium. The Secret Service keep him there for about two minutes as people around him are screaming and scrambling.
Imagine what goes through Trump’s mind in those chaotic two minutes. He’s not altogether sure what just happened. He doesn’t know if the ear wound is just the ear or the head too. He’s still not sure if he’s been shot anywhere else.
Agents try to assess his condition visually and verbally. They decide to get him to the relative safety of a nearby vehicle.
At the time, there was no way of knowing whether the shooter who’d been neutralized was a loner or one of many. Raising the President from the floor and out from behind the podium could make him a sitting duck. But leaving him there risked another barrage of bullets – and perhaps explosives as well.
Trump was smart enough to know all that.
Most men would have chosen to cower under the podium. It was a lousy shield against explosives and AR-15 bullets but at least it offered a bit of concealment.
But Donald Trump is not like most men.
The Secret Service agents wanted to carry him off in a stretcher, but he refused. Instead, with their help he got to his feet and came out from the podium, ear torn and face bloodied.
Then he did something unforgettable. Let him describe it:
I wanted to do something to let ’em know I was ok. I raised my right arm, looked at the thousands and thousands of people that were breathlessly waiting and started shouting, Fight! Fight! Fight!
Since that day, Trump has said he believes God saved him, that he might save America.
Strong words. Presumptuous even. Some people would say arrogant. But those people have never had rifle bullets from a would-be assassin tear through their ear and kill a man right behind them.
Trump seems different now. Calmer. More thoughtful. Serene. Settled. Dedicated. Workmanlike. Mission-driven.
I don’t pretend to know if God saved Trump so that he could save America. Most of my communications with the Guy Upstairs are from me to Him, not the other way around.
But I know Trump himself believes that. Something happened to him in the eternity of those two bloody minutes as he wondered if they were his last.
