That, needless to say, changed her.
In the days since the assassination attempt against former president Donald Trump, Speier has reflected a lot on her brush with death. “I remembered how I felt when I was shot,” she writes in an op-ed. “There’s survivor’s guilt, bewilderment, fearlessness, gratitude and the gnawing question of, ‘Why was I spared?’”
In his speech Thursday night at the closing of the Republican National Convention, Trump grappled with that confusion himself. “I’m not supposed to be here tonight,” he told the audience.
And to listen to the Post columnists who commented on Trump’s speech in real time, it seemed that getting shot changed Trump, too — at least at first. “This is Trump as we have never seen him,” Chuck Lane wrote toward the beginning of the speech. “Chastened, somber, authentically emotional.”
“His voice is so different,” E.J. Dionne wrote. “His whole affect is so different.”
Ah, but then the “unity” speech turned to “witch hunts” and “crazy Nancy Pelosi,” meandering into familiar fact-free territory. As Trump continued talking for what would ultimately be more than an hour and a half, Jim Geraghty called it at 11:03 p.m. Eastern: “Trump has now officially reverted to factory settings.”
By morning, the columnists were wondering in the Prompt 2024 newsletter (which you can sign up for here): “Did Donald Trump blow his RNC acceptance speech?”
Dana Milbank writes that Trump’s promises of unifying the country were “about as plausible as President Biden announcing that he hopes to take up rugby.”
Dana takes on the speech in his column but steps back, too, to assess the fallout of the shooting, now at nearly a week’s distance. He concludes that “the world didn’t stop, or even slow down.”
Over and over again, for years, observers have waited for Trump to change. If anything were ever to do it, it would be a near-death experience, right? But Trump is not Jackie Speier, or anyone other than Trump, singular and immutable.
As Alexandra Petri writes in her response to the former president’s speech, “No, there was never a chance of anything different. But you would think we might stop believing there was.”
Chaser: Danielle Allen actually does see a path to national unity, but politicians aren’t going to take us there. We the people need to change the rules of the game.
Biden, changed out?
A whole bunch of Democrats would love a change in their nominee — ideally, a complete replacement. This brings us to the big question: Is it Joever?
The Editorial Board wants to give the debate over removing President Biden from the ticket its due course, which is why it so opposes the Democratic National Committee’s plan to formalize Biden’s nomination well ahead of the party’s actual convention in mid-August. The leaders rushing things along, the board writes, are treating voters’ concerns over Biden’s fitness “as neither legitimate nor pressing.”
If those leaders stopped and listened, they would hear the growing chorus of elected Democrats locking into what Fareed Zakaria calls a game of chicken with the incumbent. They don’t have any mechanism to actually force Biden off the ticket, so they have to convince him they’re not going to swerve.
As Fareed writes, these Democrats have power only if Biden “believes that the party will stand firm against him even as Election Day gets closer and the risk of another Trump presidency rises.”
If this all feels strange and new, that’s because the party is actually acting like a party — something neither the Democrats nor the GOP have done in this country in a long time. Fareed explains how this assertion of power could be the beginning of a broader and, in fact, very healthy reset.
Chaser: Who’s at fault for Biden still being on the ticket? Or for the effort to get him off? And also — why not! — for the Trump assassination attempt? The media, of course! As Erik Wemple writes, “Did something bad just happen in America? We know whom to blame.”
More politics
For now, the presumptive November matchup remains Trump-Biden, and the presumptive big issue remains the economy, stupid. Heather Long and Aden Barton have done a fabulous job setting Trump’s and Biden’s performances in that arena side by side, in the form of 17 charts.
Heather and Aden play the classics — unemployment, inflation, the stock market — determining at the end of each mini-interpretation of the chart which man has the edge. They also go for some deeper-cut metrics — jobs by county and by industry, entrepreneurship levels, and my favorite, a delight to see plotted: vibes.
Chaser: George Will sees two tickets with policies that aren’t that different to begin with — Democratic progressivism vs. GOP “progressivism-lite,” he writes, much to his chagrin.
Smartest, fastest
- Project 2025 shreds American values, writes former Maryland governor and current Republican nominee for U.S. Senate Larry Hogan, in a big break from his party.
- Josh Rogin explains what J.D. Vance gets wrong about the challenge China poses — turns out ignoring the rest of the world is counterproductive.
- The Republican convention was a success, Jim Geraghty concludes. Will it matter? Unclear.
It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku.
The greatest change possible:
Plus! A Friday double bye-ku (Fri-ku!) from reader Laura B.:
Have paid attention to this
That you want to feel awful
Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. Have a great weekend!
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