In the times because the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, supporters of the previous president have used the incident to convey a picture of power.

T-shirts with a bloody Trump with a clenched fist were on the market on the Republican National Conventionwhere Trump – with a bandaged ear – told of his ordeal.

Of course, Trump is much from the primary political leader to survive an assassination attempt. And most of the victims were populist politicians – from each the left and the fitting.

The Conversation spoke to Ruth Ben-GhiatAuthor of “Strong men: From Mussolini to todayto look at how authoritarian leaders have used assassination attempts prior to now to burnish their strongman image, and whether Trump's actions because the shooting fit that pattern.

What does history tell us about assassinations of populist leaders?

The History of strong men can also be the story of their opponents' attempts to remove them from power by force. Although authoritarian leaders often portray their violence as justified and mandatory – saving the country from dangers from internal or external enemies is the propaganda standard – their persecution of so many individuals and their policies that may bring nations to damage create the conditions for violence for use against them too.

Assassinations may be the work of people, organized resistance cells throughout the country or people in exile. They can be the results of operations by the key services of enemy countries, as in the many failed CIA operations to kill Cuba's long-time communist leader, Fidel Castro.

“If surviving an assassination attempt were an Olympic event, I would win the gold medal,” Castro said. commented once.

Many authoritarian rulers change into targets of assassins early of their term in office – after they’ve made enemies but haven’t yet even established the infrastructure of a secret police and appropriate security protocols.

Surviving multiple previous assassination attempts can strengthen a political leader's personality cult and claim to invincibility. It may function a justification for rigorous measures or repressive policies.

Then they’ll stay in office for a very long time. Mussolini, the survived 4 assassination attempts He remained in power for 17 years, from 1925 to 1926.

Other leaders are targeted during their rule. Adolf Hitler survived dozens of Attempts on his life of people and groups. The Führer's dysfunctional leadership, especially in military affairs, led to high-ranking German military officers plotting against him from the late Nineteen Thirties onwards, which culminated within the July 20, 1944, Explosion at his headquarters in East Prussia, where he was barely injured.

And when dictators are in power long enough to cover every part with a cloak of secrecy – like Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who 42 years in officemanaged – it may be difficult to trace all of the attacks on their person by military and civilian resistance fighters. He also survived dozens of attemptsAt least ten of them took place between 1980 and 1985, a few of which took the shape of coup attempts throughout the Libyan military.

What impact did survival have on their popularity?

In a dictatorship, it’s difficult to evaluate the recognition of a politician. Public applause for the politician may not at all times correspond with inner feelings. People know the worth of expressing support for the premature death of a politician.

Nevertheless, assassination attempts can trigger a wave of sympathy for political leaders and thus strengthen their personality cult.

And with each failed attempt, the themes of the personality cult of the leader's macho toughness, resilience and invincibility gain credibility amongst his followers. This was actually the case with Castro and Mussolini, and to date stays the case with former President Donald Trump.

How did these men use assassinations to their advantage?

Since Mussolini and Hitler, strong men have portrayed themselves as victims of internal and external enemies, but additionally as protectors of the nation – because the only ones who could save the people and cause them to greatness.

Victim ideologies – wherein the leader presents himself as a logo of a whole persecuted people – are a part of the toolbox of virtually every authoritarian leader in office. Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić is just one among many which represent themselves as being relentlessly attacked by their enemies.

Opponents often imagine that the removal of an authoritarian leader means the top of the regime. But failed assassinations give these victim narratives a concrete reference point and credibility.

That is why politicians sometimes make their horrific experiences public. After a bullet grazed his nose in April 1926, Mussolini posed for a photograph with a big white patch to indicate his devoted followers. And Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was photographed with a bandaged hand next to his bullet-riddled Mercedes after 1986 Ambush of Chilean communist activists.

Since in authoritarian states an attack on the leader is seen as an attack on the nation itself, even peaceful critics may be labelled as enemies of the complete nation or whilst terrorists in subsequent raids. This happened in Russia under Vladimir Putin and in Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdogan – an actual try to kill the leader can States of emergency the implications.

What other consequences were there?

The consequences of the 1986 Assassination attempt on Pinochet points out that failed assassinations don’t at all times result in a lift in popularity when the politician's status is already in jeopardy and the vast majority of the population wants him to resign. They may lead resistance fighters to rethink their tactics.

In 1986, when Pinochet's Patriotic Front ambushed Manuel Rodríguez on a rustic road as he returned from his weekend home in El Melocotón outside Santiago, Chileans were exhausted by the regime's violence and a nonviolent mass protest movement had been constructing for several years.

The assassination, which included the usage of light anti-tank missiles, grenades and M16 rifles, killed or wounded several members of Pinochet's security forces, but Pinochet himself, who was driving a brand-new armored Mercedes with bulletproof tires, suffered only minor injuries.

“I am neither a saint nor Mohammed. If they slap me in the face, I'll hit you back with two,” Pinochet told reporters the subsequent day. Soon, bodies of leftists bearing marks of presidency torture started to appear in Santiago. By 1986, the junta's brutality had lost support, however the communists' armed response to the regime's violence seemed misguided to many. Many Christian Democrats and conservatives agreed with the socialists' condemnation of a communist strategy that “only means more pain and death for the Chilean people.”

The assassination deepened the wedge between the communists determined to have interaction in armed rebel and other opposition forces and brought the non-violent resistance parties closer together, which accelerated the top of the regime.

Can we already see a few of these trends in Trump?

The impact of the assassination attempt on Trump has to date been consistent with the history of authoritarian regimes. One of an important aftereffects is the strengthening of Trump's role as a victim. He had at all times said He told his devoted followers that the “enemies” weren’t after him, but after them, and that he was “just in the way.”

The assassination attempt on July 13, 2024 will confirm this claim within the eyes of Trump's supporters, especially since one rally participant was killed by the gunman and others were injured.

The attack has also earned Trump much more loyalty from supporters near him. At the RNC, many wore ear bandages as an indication of support. Trump's wounds are their wounds too – to them, he embodies the nation, expresses its suffering, and risks his safety for it.

Revenge and retribution against his persecutors have been a central theme in Trump's campaign. He and his allies have talked about investigating those that have tried to carry him accountable. The government's “Project 2025” plan, meanwhile, put together by a think tank with ties to Trump, calls for mass firings of non-loyalists, an expansion of executive powers and other pillars of authoritarian governance.

The assassination attempt on Trump can function a justification for these measures, just as other attacks by authoritarian regimes have occurred throughout history.

politics

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden warned Monday that a Supreme Court ruling granting presidents broad immunity from prosecution would further embolden unbridled Republican Donald Trump “to do whatever he wants” if he wins back the White House in November’s election.

Biden, who’s under enormous pressure following his disastrous performance in the controversy against Trump last week, urged Americans to rigorously consider their voting decision and signaled that he has no intention of dropping out of the race.

Biden criticized the court's conservative majority's decision – which virtually guarantees that Trump is not going to face trial in Washington before the November election for his conduct throughout the violent riots on January 6, 2021 – and said it was now as much as the American people “to do what the courts would have been willing to do but are not doing.”

“The American people must judge Donald Trump’s conduct.”

Biden's efforts to refocus his campaign after the controversy, which spooked donors and sparked deep fear amongst Democrats, closely resemble his previous attempts to focus entirely on Trump's misdeeds and inadequacies. During his transient address on Monday, he made no mention of last week's debate or his performance and didn’t take questions, delivering an unusually political message from the White House.

“I know I will respect the limits of the president's power, as I have for three and a half years, but any president, including Donald Trump, will now have the freedom to ignore the law,” Biden said.

Biden appeared relaxed and assured, had a crisp, clear tone of voice, and looked tanned and rested – all in stark contrast to his often halting performance during last week's debate, when his face was strikingly pale. The president also had the good thing about a teleprompter for his remarks concerning the court, something he didn’t have at his disposal when sparring with Trump.

There were private discussions inside Biden's camp about what more the president could do to counteract what Americans saw throughout the debate, when he gave muddled answers, paused at times, occasionally stared into space and sounded croaky. The conversations also touched on whether Biden ought to be more visible in public, resembling at town hall-style events or interviews and press conferences, which he has generally avoided during his time in office.

But most of those near him are waiting for more meaningful poll results to evaluate the extent of the damage before changing course in any significant way, based on 4 Biden advisers who weren’t authorized to talk publicly about internal discussions and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Biden's team may not change anything in any respect. Many imagine – or hope – that the awkward moment will pass, especially after Biden's family encouraged him at a gathering at Camp David on Sunday to remain within the race and keep fighting.

Campaign officials said Monday that that they had no latest events to announce. Biden will run his campaign as before and address the swing states as he has been doing for months.

An ad released Monday was titled “I Know” and used clips from Biden's post-debate rally in North Carolina, where he said, “When you get knocked down, you get back up.”

Quentin Fulks, Biden's deputy campaign manager, turned the main focus to Trump in a phone call with reporters, saying: “When you see President Biden on the campaign trail, he will talk about the reasons why Americans should be afraid of Donald Trump, just as he has been doing for months.”

Even before the controversy, the 81-year-old Democratic president's age was an obstacle with voters, and the prime-time debate brought the problem into focus, before perhaps the most important audience he can have within the 4 months until Election Day. CNN, which hosted the controversy, said greater than 51 million people watched.

“I think his age was a big factor, and I know he can do better than he did Thursday night. I expected more. I'm not sure that was the case for other voters,” said Jennifer Palmieri, White House communications director throughout the Obama administration and spokeswoman for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign.

She added that the campaign has responded tactically by supporting Biden's strong speech in North Carolina on Friday and continuing to publicize high fundraising numbers. Palmieri also said Biden can also need to undergo more interviews to proceed to point out that the controversy was an anomaly.

“Their focus needs to be on getting him in front of the voters who matter most, and more interviews should be part of that. Don't be like Trump in your own little universe,” she said. “Right now, it's early days, but what they're doing is working.”

One gets the sensation that voters are actually watching Biden more closely, searching for signs that may reveal, a technique or one other, whether his debate debacle was only a slip-up—whether, as he himself says, he’s fit for the job.

Alan Kessler, a lawyer and member of the Biden campaign's national finance team, has spent days reassuring nervous donors by telling them what he said he personally experienced when he saw the president – that he was “clear-headed and strong as ever.”

“I reassure people as necessary,” Kessler said.

Biden expressed interest in at the very least one interview. At a fundraiser Saturday in East Hampton, New York, Biden said he spoke with radio host Howard Stern, who interviewed him in April, answering open-ended questions that mostly related to his early years.

The president told the gang that he was ready for an additional conversation with Stern: “I had a great time on his show. And I'm actually going to take a chance and come back.”

Meanwhile, senior Biden campaign officials, including Fulks and Jen O'Malley Dillon, sought damage control by making calls Monday evening with about 500 members of the campaign's National Finance Committee and other donors, based on an individual acquainted with the private call who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.

They downplayed potential consequences of the controversy, blamed the media for concerns about Biden's popularity and reiterated that Biden is fit for office. But the decision did little to allay the concerns of many supporters, the person said.

Campaign officials said there had been “no discussions whatsoever” about Biden dropping out of the race or any personnel restructuring after the controversy.

The window of opportunity is getting smaller and smaller anyway. The Democratic National Committee has announced that it’s going to officially nominate him because the nominee in a virtual vote before the party convention begins in Chicago on August 19. But when that may occur and what it’s going to seem like continues to be unclear.

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Associated Press writers Josh Boak and Michael Rubinkam in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.