Current possible meanings of "the tower is everywhere", I offer boldly while trembling....

[Mark Kohut]

That fuckin' Iwo Jima-like photo of Trump after he hurt his ear.

A Legendary American Photograph

The photo of Trump after the attempt on his life is a badly needed window
into the MAGA mindset.
By Tyler Austin Harper
<https://www.theatlantic.com/author/tyler-austin-harper/>
[image: Donald Trump with blood on his face, raising his fist, after an
assassination attempt at his rally]Evan Vucci / AP
JULY 14, 2024, 2:17 PM ET
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Donald Trump raises a fist. Blood streaks his face. The sky is high, blue,
and empty except for an American flag caught in a hard wind. A Secret
Service agent has her arms around his waist. The former president’s mouth
is open, in the middle of a snarled shout. We know from video footage that
he is yelling “Fight!,” that the crowd is chanting “USA!”

The photograph
<https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/13/politics/gallery/in-pictures-trump-injured-at-pennsylvania-rally/index.html>,
by the Associated Press’s Evan Vucci, became immediately legendary. However
you feel about the man at its center, it is undeniably one of the great
compositions in U.S. photographic history. Although I am deeply relieved
that Trump survived this assassination attempt, I am no fan of his. But the
first time I saw the photo, I felt an emotion that I later recognized, with
considerable discomfort, as a fluttering of unbidden nationalist zeal. What
encapsulates our American ideal more than bloody defiance
<https://x.com/EsotericCD/status/1812289350865948960> and stubborn pride
that teeters just on the edge of foolishness? No hunkering and no
hiding—standing undaunted and undeterred, fist-pumping your way through an
attempted murder. It was a moment when Trump supporters’ idea of
him—strong, resilient, proud—collided with reality.

I can’t help but be moved by this remarkable image, taken by a Pulitzer
Prize winner
<https://www.thedailybeast.com/ap-photographer-evan-vucci-spills-on-historic-trump-rally-shooting-pic>
 who ran toward the danger <https://x.com/RonenV/status/1812282594584916108>,
camera in hand, rather than away from it. There is a perverse and
paradoxical disjunction between Trump the man, who many argue is a threat
to American democracy, and this image of Trump, which seems to capture that
same democracy in all its pathology, mythos, and, yes, glory. The
*Compact* editor
Sohrab Ahmari tweeted
<https://x.com/SohrabAhmari/status/1812275114580509145> that Trump’s
instinct—to reflexively gesture in rebellion after being shot at—is
“evidence of a truly extraordinary man.” He is more than a little right.
Extraordinary, after all, is not so much a moral descriptor as an aesthetic
one.

David Frum: The gunman and the would-be dictator
<https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/07/donald-trump-democracy-dictator/679006/>

The image of Trump, bloody with a raised fist, is destined to adorn
T-shirts, magazine covers <https://x.com/yashar/status/1812513859690999941>,
full-page spreads in history books, campaign ads. I do not think it is an
exaggeration to say that the photo is nearly perfect, one that was captured
under extreme duress and that distills the essence of a man in all his
contradictions.

Many commentators have already surmised that this image alone will cost our
current president his reelection bid. Some rushed
<https://x.com/ritaresarian/status/1812267751471460831> to juxtapose
pictures of Joe Biden, staring awkwardly and looking frail, with an angry,
almost-assassinated Trump. One writer took to X to place the Vucci photo side
by side <https://x.com/mannyfidel/status/1812278618019803593> with a still
from the film *Oppenheimer*, implying that the photographer, like the
inventor of the atomic bomb, may one day come to feel that his greatest
achievement slipped out of his control and ushered in a darker world. The
left-wing political commentator Cenk Uygur summarized
<https://x.com/cenkuygur/status/1812386902236160373> things more simply
still: “Trump sticking the hand up and saying, ‘Fight, fight, fight!’ while
the crowd chanted ‘USA, USA, USA!’ was bad ass.”

All of these reactions, whether fear or resentment or grudging admiration,
are understandable. But I wonder whether they miss the point. The real
subject of this photograph is not Donald Trump but his supporters. Many of
us have mocked Trump stans—their ridiculous fan art
<https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/8/8/17376824/trump-fan-art-maga-dinesh-dsouza-jon-mcnaughton>
that
reimagines him with bulging muscles or fighting in the Revolutionary War
<https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-mocked-bizarre-july-4-133353095.html>;
their unshakable and cultish belief in his vigor; their desperate desire to
see him as he wants to be seen rather than as he is. Yesterday, for a few
moments at least, the Trump of MAGA’s imagination and reality became
indistinguishable. Not even the most slavish devotee of the former
president could have dreamed up a more iconic portrait.
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Today, Americans are not unified. We are not “All MAGA,” as a viral
headline this morning suggests
<https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/today-were-all-maga-trump-shooting-assassination/>.
We are angry, bitter, and divided; paranoid and afraid; governed by two
parties that seem constitutionally incapable of putting America above their
own interests. What happened yesterday does nothing to change that. Nor do
a few seconds of real bravery absolve Trump of his sins, or make his
political platform more palatable. But I would suggest that Democrats and
anti-Trumpers take a break from contextualizing and problematizing and
hypothesizing and worrying, and instead spend some time contemplating, if
only for a minute or two, this photograph. The man, the flag, the blood,
the fist.

Pete Wehner: The power of restraint
<https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/07/trump-pennsylvania/679004/>

It is often difficult for Trump critics to inhabit the mind of one of his
supporters, to understand Trump’s appeal without immediately defaulting to
simplifications like racism and misogyny, explanations that have become
less of a skeleton key and more of a shibboleth, particularly as the former
president continues to see his support among minorities swell. Vucci has
provided us not with an alternative theory of the case but with a badly
needed window into the MAGA mindset, allowing all of America, and indeed
the world, to see Trump through the eyes of his devotees, people we share
this country with.

If Democrats hope to beat Trump and Trumpism, they need to understand the
appeal. Which means they need to be able to look at this image and see a
promise—one I do not believe Trump can deliver, but a promise
nonetheless—of toughness, vitality, and unbowing resolve at a moment when
we are wavering, weak, and irresolute before a graying future. The
photograph is not a portrait of a man but a through-the-looking-glass
vision of America as she would have herself and as many in this country
would have her. Our oldest myths briefly became real one bright evening in
Butler, Pennsylvania.
Tyler Austin Harper
<https://www.theatlantic.com/author/tyler-austin-harper/> is an assistant
professor of environmental studies at Bates College and a contributing
writer at *The Atlantic*.
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