A Modern Colossus: Donald Trump

A man in full

By Bruce Bawer

Donald Trump promised an end to the long era of clandestine Deep State power that began with the assassination of JFK, an event that happened 60 years ago and is still shrouded in mystery. The July 13 attack on Trump’s life came very close to eliminating forever his opportunity to drain the swamp.

The likenesses between the Kennedy assassination and the near-assassination of Trump are (to use the blandest word possible) interesting. A single shooter, placed in a perfect firing location that should have been secured by the Secret Service but, for some reason, wasn’t. A plethora of questions about what would appear to be an epic failure to safeguard the Kennedy motorcade as it wound its way through Dealey Plaza — and, 60 years later, similar questions about the apparent incompetence with which the Secret Service, FBI, and local police approached the job of securing the site of Trump’s Butler, Pennsylvania, rally. Questions, indeed, about whether one or more organs of the Deep State had some role in the murder of the 35th president or in the attempt to extinguish the 45th. (The Spectacle Ep. 129: Donald Trump Was Nearly Assassinated. Was It Just Incompetence?)

Thank heavens that whereas JFK’s head was blown to bits, the bullet shot by Trump’s would-be killer just grazed his ear, apparently because the intended victim happened to turn his head slightly at the last second. During the last few years, while he has been subjected to endless harassment by his political enemies in the form of a long list of absurd hoaxes, two brless impeachments, and countless unfounded lawsuits, Trump has exhibited extraordinary personal strength. A mere fraction of what he has been put through would have broken all but the very strongest men. All others would have cut and run. Trump, a self-made billionaire who has more than earned the right to spend his later years relaxing, could easily have bowed out of politics after his presidential term was over and spent the rest of his life in the lap of luxury at his lavish personal properties, entertaining friends and enjoying the company of his family.

But he held firm. Not out of the twisted lust for power that drives the leading figures in the Democratic Party — the Clintons, the Obamas, the Bidens — but out of a sincere and passionate determination to save the country that he loves and the liberty of his fellow Americans, no matter what it might cost him. Through it all, he maintained his cheer, his bravado, his sense of humor, and his utterly natural common touch. Just a few days ago, a viral video showed him sitting in a golf cart with his son Barron, joshing amiably with golfers and, apparently, a caddy, whom he tipped with what was reportedly a C-note before going on his way. It has long since been clear that the man’s spirit is indomitable.

TRUMP IS A MAN OF THE RIGHT STUFF

But none of the previous evidence of his courage and character compared to his conduct in the moments after he was shot. In those moments, Trump proved himself to be a man among men — standing up on his own two feet, his face bloodied, and raising his fist in defiance, shouting “Fight! Fight! Fight!” even as members of his Secret Service detail tried to keep him from exposing himself to further assaults. Over and over, in this era of soy boys, pajama boys, and grown men who whine about microaggressions, Trump has proven himself to be the real thing — as Tom Wolfe would have put it, a man in full, a man with the right stuff. (READ MORE: Advice To Trump: Fire The Secret Service)

But his instantaneous reaction to the attack of July 13 outdid it all, and then some. Even Churchill never had such a moment. There can be no further question but that this man is a born hero, a natural warrior, a lionheart, a mensch of the first water, and an American icon without peer. After all of the events that have embarrassed America internationally during the pathetic Biden years — from the disastrously botched Afghanistan withdrawal to the disquieting border crisis, from the thoroughly incompetent handling of the situations in Ukraine and Gaza to the repeated public displays of Biden’s own precipitous mental decline — Trump, on that fateful day in a town called Butler, etched for all time into the minds of the world an indelible image of valor and grit and guts that is on a par with the spectacles of Mount Rushmore, the Statue of Liberty, and the Iwo Jima memorial.

The question is not whether he deserves to be elected again to the presidency. The question is what we Americans have done to deserve to have such a colossus in the Oval Office.

First published in The American Spectator