Ryan Bridge: Is there a lesson in Trump's shooting for NZ's political leaders?

Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

Barring any other major, ugly affronts to democracy this U.S. election season, the image of a bloodied former president surrounded by Secret Service agents gripping his fist and pumping it into the air after narrowly avoiding an assassination attempt will be one of the most enduring and iconic.

He's reported to be saying fight, fight. fight, with a somewhat understandably angry look on his face.

Donald Trump cheated death.

Questions are no doubt being asked about how and why this could have happened, as they should. How did 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, wearing grey camouflage clothing, manage to scale the roof of a manufacturing plant just north of the Butler Farm show grounds with his dad's AR 15 rifle?

What's interesting, of all the eye witness interviews I watched over the weekend, all felt not surprised, it was only a matter of time.

Why?

After the shooting Republican senator J.D. Vance. a potential Trump running mate, blamed the Biden campaign for inciting the violence.

“The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,”

“That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”

Another Trump ally senator, Tim Scott, said on social media - “Let’s be clear: this was an assassination attempt aided and abetted by the radical left and corporate media incessantly calling trump a threat to democracy, fascists, or worse,”

At this time, we don't know the shooter's motive, and it should be pointed out that Trump often uses inflammatory language too.

Is there a lesson here for our political leaders, for the Chloe's chanting river to the sea? The Māori Party calling Luxon a white supremacist, for David Seymour is doubling down on saying he fantasised about sending Guy Fawkes into the Ministry of Pacific Peoples.

The fact is, you don't know what nutbar is out there listening and waiting for a cause big enough to prompt some sort of lone-wolf attack.

Here most attacks are pretty minor, a dildo to the face, lamington on the head. John Key was attacked by two men at Waitangi in 2009.

So the question is whether the use of extreme political language can raise the temperature and cause violence. Clearly Hitler answers that question.

So politicians here on the far left like Chloe and Waititi should take note and lower the tone of some of their attacks. Same with far-right keyboard warriors.

But I'd hate to see the day where our pollies can't joke and take the piss and be forthright with their words just because some idiot might be at home with a shotgun harbouring hate.

The question for the U.S. now is - does this quell the extreme left and right, or will this bloodshed be answered with more bloodshed?

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