By Athena Papakosta

Donald Trump aimed his arrows at the rhetoric of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for the assassination attempt against him. Speaking on Fox News and its online edition as well as on the X platform (formerly Twitter), the former president of the United States accused his former and current opponent in the race for the White House, stressing that the alleged perpetrator of the attack acted according to the “extreme inflammatory rhetoric” of the Democrats.

“He believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris and acted on it,” he said characteristically of 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh, adding that because of this he ends up being a target “at a time when,” as he says, “I’m the only one who’s going to save the country and they are the ones who are destroying it”.

As he explained, the positions of both the president of the United States and the vice president of the country are “a threat to democracy.” He even went a step further by saying that four or five shots were fired, when the FBI claims in its official statements that there was not a single one.

It is easy to see that the attitude of Donald Trump the day after the new assassination attempt against him is in stark contrast to the one he took about two months ago after the first attempt on him in a campaign speech in Pennsylvania.

Today he does not appear unifying at all, while he has already tried to connect the new attack against him with the narrative of the threat posed by irregular immigration to the country. As reported by the British BBC network, this is a completely unfounded but useful connection for the Republican candidate to direct attention to an issue in which his views resonate with voters.

According to analysts, 64 days ago the Republican nominee was leading in the polls and the Democratic Party was in turmoil. Now, the facts are different. With Kamala Harris as an opponent, the battle, in an already tense but subversive election campaign, is chest to chest and it is possible that now that the spotlight is on him again, he will try to use the new assassination attempt against him to his advantage.

But this rhetoric is dangerous. We already witnessed this when he spread false information that immigrants were eating the pets of residents of Springfield, Ohio, schools in the area were evacuated after bomb threats and classes are now held while they are patrolled.

Therefore, the time to tone down is now but Trump’s choice to “show” Kamala Harris and Joe Biden as responsible for the attempt against him ignites a new cycle of division in the country and indeed, as oxymoronic as it may seem, the moment the starting point of his argument is correct. Words matter and so does the narrative chosen. Even more so when we are 48 days before the polls open.