Even by his tumultuous standards, Donald Trump has had quite a week. On a sunny afternoon last Saturday he narrowly survived an assassination attempt when a gunman fired at him while he addressed a rally in Pennsylvania. One bullet came so close it nicked his right ear. Displaying the instincts for pugnacious imagery and rhetoric that have long served him well, the Republican presidential nominee shook his fist and shouted “Fight”, even as he was hustled, bleeding, from the scene.
Just two days later the former US president was back on stage at the Republican party convention in Milwaukee, sporting a bandage over his ear, and beaming. He had just unveiled JD Vance, a full-throated and youthful backer of his “America-first” doctrine, as his running mate, underlining how the party is fully Trumpian now and how his nationalist populism could dominate it long into the future. He also clearly sensed he had a fresh following wind for the election in November — as he has.
As if on cue, Silicon Valley and the courts lent an obliging hand to his cause. Elon Musk and other tech titans came out for Trump soon after the shooting, pledging to fund his campaign. On Monday another plank in what at the start of the year had seemed a formidable legal edifice in his path fell away. A Florida judge — a Trump nominee — dismissed a criminal case against him over the handling of classified documents. Sometimes, a week really is a long time in politics.