The failed assassination of Donald Trump has launched modern American politics into uncharted waters, as Joe Biden calls for a ratcheting down of rhetoric and Republicans blame him without knowing the motive of the would-be assassin.
Trump will walk into this week’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee as a defiant hero, while the Democrats continue to debate if Biden will be their candidate.
Biden’s campaign has now suspended all advertising in the aftermath of the attack, signalling a shift in what was already a contentious battle for the White House.
From the Oval Office, Biden said that there is “no place in America for this kind of violence”.
“We cannot, we must not, go down this road in America,” he said.
“Politics must never be a literal battlefield or, God forbid, a literal killing field.”
Trump has yet to front the media since being shot in the ear by 20-year-old Thomas Michael Crooks, whose motive still isn’t known.
But he posted on his Truth Social account that he will be appearing at the convention to ensure that doesn’t “allow a ‘shooter,’ or potential assassin, to force change to scheduling, or anything else”.
Cooling tensions?
The Republican Party’s loudest voices, including potential Trump VP JD Vance and the conspiracy-minded Marjorie Taylor Greene, quickly blamed the Democratic Party and Biden for the attack without evidence.
Trump has used the same rhetoric about Biden that they have claimed led to the attack, that he is a threat to democracy, while Taylor Greene has repeatedly called the Democratic Party the enablers of pedophiles and murderers.
Some Republicans, including Speaker Mike Johnson, have joined Biden in calling for a cooling of rhetoric and political tensions.
Dan Meuser, a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania who attended the rally, said he had spoken to several of his Democratic colleagues about how to lower the temperature of the political climate.
“We’ve got to do everything we can to have more professional discourse,” he said.
“Not this crazy attacking each other and making things personal.”
Trump’s campaign also raised concerns about the speeches at the RNC, fearing that they could be overly aggressive and inflammatory, according to the New York Times.
His campaign has invited his former primary rival Nikki Haley, who was previously frozen out, to make a speech in a bid to show unity among the Republican Party.
The future
How the failed assassination, and attempts for cooler heads to prevail from both sides of the aisle, otherwise play out remains to be seen.
Trump, who is no stranger to stoking political violence, will set the tone for how his fanatical supporters respond later this week at the RNC.
If he paints the attempt as orchestrated by the Democratic Party, or the shadowy cabal he often refers to his speeches as ‘they’ or the deep state, it could inspire the same supporters who chanted “hang Mike Pence” on January 6 or tried to kidnap Democrat Gretchen Whitmer.
Biden reached out to Trump on Sunday and gave several speeches espousing the need for “all of us to take a step back”, although it remains to be seen if Trump will do the same.
The World Observer Media produces a daily online newspaper, a daily Arabic online newspaper and a monthly printed Arabic/English magazine and a weekly printed Arabic/English newspaper.
The World Observer Media’s mission is to entertain and educate all generation from the Ethnic Communities in Australia, who are interested in local, national and foreign information. 
