The attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania yesterday presents a major test of American democracy. The threat of political violence has simmered beneath the surface of recent campaign cycles, but the shocking news from Butler, a town north of Pittsburgh, risks an already chaotic presidential election season spiralling into something much darker.
“In those few seconds, all the old nightmares of killings or attempts on the lives of American political leaders, from Lincoln to the Kennedy brothers to Martin Luther King to Ronald Reagan outside the Hilton hotel in Washington, were resurrected, and all the old fear and nausea with them,” writes our Washington Correspondent, Keith Duggan.
“And as the sun set across America on Saturday night, the confusion and consternation and a national sense of dread and unease took hold. You could see it in the faces and in the voices of the broadcast hosts and in footage of the panicked eyes of the Trump fans gathered behind their leader, in sun wear and Republican paraphernalia.”
In the US and across the world, political leaders have joined together in condemnation of the shooting. But it’s clear that US democracy finds itself at a critical moment. How it responds will shape not only the election in November but the country’s political culture for years to come.
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The days leading up to this weekend had been dominated by questions over the political viability of Trump’s likely opponent, President Joe Biden, who has been under severe pressure since his disastrous performance in a debate last month. There were reminders of Biden’s fluency on policy at a long news conference on Thursday, when he spoke confidently on a range of issues, from the tax code and trade policy to Russian aggression and the Israel-Hamas war.
But two gaffes again raised doubts over his mental acuity. Introducing Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy as “president Putin” and mistakenly calling Kamala Harris “vice-president Trump” has worsened the sense of crisis engulfing the Democratic Party. Writing from Washington, Keith Duggan observes the party’s “collective political nervous breakdown” over whether Biden should withdraw from the White House race.
Age as a factor in politics was Justine McCarthy’s subject in her column this week. “Wisdom, that great compensation for the vanished stamina of youth, seems to have bypassed the US president”, she writes. “Age is a weighing scales. On the down side are less energy, more aches and pains. On the upside, greater life experience and wisdom, including the wisdom to know when to quit. That Joe Biden has been unable to do so is further evidence that there is something other than the arbitrary measure of age that is affecting his mind.”
Among our most read stories this week was the return to Ireland of Roscommon woman Tori Towey. The Emirates airline cabin crew worker had been banned from leaving Dubai after being charged with attempted suicide and illegally consuming alcohol by authorities in the United Arab Emirates. Jack White looks behind the UAE’s carefully cultivated self-image, while Jennifer O’Connell notes the hypocrisy at the heart of a city whose tourism slogan, “Only in Dubai”, was never more apt.
This week saw some broad outlines of the October budget emerge as the Cabinet decided it would be framed around a tax and spending package of €8.3 billion. Cliff Taylor and David McWilliams offer different perspectives on the Irish and British economies. Cliff says Ireland could learn a lot from the Starmer government’s bold plans to reform Britain’s planning system; David believes Britain would love to have Ireland’s economic “problem”, where the main political difficulty is deciding how to spend our consistently huge tax surpluses.
Next Thursday will see Simon Harris complete 100 days as Taoiseach. He has brought a new energy to the role, Pat Leahy writes in his assessment of those early months, and Fine Gael has been lifted by his leadership. However, as Pat notes, “Harris has not yet articulated a broader vision for the country or a worked-out plan about how to get there; and it is fair to say that he has not displayed an obvious hinterland. He has played the ball in front of him, and played it well, but he has not changed the game.”
When England take on Spain in Berlin tonight, locals may breathe a collective sigh of relief that the scrutiny the country has received over the last few weeks will be nearing an end. Germans don’t like what Euro 2024 has exposed, writes Derek Scally. “If Euro 2024 has served any purpose for Germany, then it is as a rude awakening for the worst instincts – complacent, coasting-along – of the Berliner Republik,” Derek writes.
There was good news in the Aer Lingus pay row on Wednesday when the airline dropped plans to cancel further flights next week after pilots ended industrial action pending a vote on a 17.75 per cent pay rise, proposed by the Labour Court as a means of ending the dispute. When that vote is held later this month, developments will be carefully observed by other staff at the airline, writes Martin Wall.
Elsewhere, Donald Clarke writes about how film classification in Ireland has changed over the years. The “pinched-mouth censorship” of sex scenes in the past has given way to enlightened engagement with more modern concerns such as mental health and depictions of suicide.
Mark O’Connell isn’t interested in the debates between motorists, cyclists and pedestrian (he is all three) but feels that Dublin does not feel like a place that is run primarily in the interest of its citizens. “It feels like a place that is run primarily in the interest of its businesses.”
Have a good weekend,
Ruadhán Mac Cormaic
Editor
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