The shots that rang out over the agricultural show grounds in Butler, Pennsylvania did not come from nowhere. They came from a gun that has been primed to fire for years.
If he were given to self-reflection, Donald Trump might even be asking some difficult questions of himself about how America has reached this dismal pass. But he isn’t, of course.
Instead, heading into the Republican convention starting on Monday in Milwaukee, he emerges from the attempted assassination as a divinely ordained not-quite martyr who survived to tell the tale and “make America great again”.
“Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers yesterday, as it was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening,” the former and would-be future president wrote on his Truth Social platform.
More than his words, it is the imagery of the shooting that will be seared onto the collective memory, set to be republished and rebroadcast incessantly by his supporters and sympathetic media between now and November 5, and beyond.
One in particular evoked the US Marines retaking Iwo Jima in a climactic World War Two battle - the Stars and Stripes billowing behind a fist-pumping Mr Trump as he was hustled off the stage by his Secret Service bodyguards, blood streaming from his ear.
At a stroke, he went a long way towards neutralising Democratic attacks on his historic conviction in a criminal trial and their portrayal of him as a clear and present threat to democracy.
Any Democrat who can rise above the fray might be able to move the debate on. President Joe Biden spoke to Mr Trump and appealed to eradicate the “sick” violence seen in Pennsylvania. But, faltering and ageing almost visibly before our eyes, he is not that Democrat.
Instead, with the Democrats suspending their campaign attacks, it is the pro-Trump “Maga” partisans who have swamped the airwaves over the past 48 hours since Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire at the rally in Butler.
The 20-year-old from a nearby Pittsburgh suburb was killed at the scene by Secret Service sharpshooters. One attendee at the rally also died, and two others were left critically wounded.
But violence is endemic to politics in the United States and if anything, it is a surprise that attacks on politicians have not been more frequent given the super-charged tension that has choked the atmosphere for years.
The stench of hypocrisy in the air has also been getting thicker. Even as they condemn such spasms, politicians have been doing everything to stoke that tension. It drives up their base, encourages donations, and translates into votes.
Representative Mike Collins from Georgia claimed that “Joe Biden sent the orders” and demanded his prosecution for “inciting an assassination”.
This is the same Republican lawmaker who two years ago ran a campaign ad in which he shoots a high-powered rifle bullet through a box of papers denoting the political agenda of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Mr Trump is expected to name his vice presidential pick possibly as early as Monday night at the Republican convention, where he can be expected an even bigger hero’s welcome than normal.
One of the frontrunners, Ohio Senator JD Vance, did his chances no harm by saying the attack was “not just some isolated incident”.
“The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump's attempted assassination,” he tweeted.
And yet, that rhetoric also didn’t come from nowhere. It was in response to Mr Trump’s own incendiary attacks and actions down the years, starting with the untruth that Barack Obama was lying about his birthplace and therefore ineligible to stand when he was elected America’s first black president in 2008.
When Ms Pelosi’s husband Paul suffered a vicious beating by a hammer-wielding madman, Mr Trump joked about it in front of a jeering crowd. He was just as derisive when a plot by Far-right extremists to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and overthrow her state government was exposed.
The same toxic stew of Far-right conspiracy theories, lent credence by Mr Trump and his acolytes, gave rise to a mass shooting just over two years ago in Buffalo, New York, when 10 African-Americans were shot and murdered by a white supremacist firing the same model of AR-15 semi-automatic rifle that was used at the Trump rally.
Above all, the Republican encouraged a baying mob to march on Capitol Hill after his election defeat four years ago, and has ever since maintained the fiction that the election was stolen by Mr Biden. Any defeat in November will be a product of the same “deep state” forces, Mr Trump insists.
So yes, Crooks fired the gun. But it was locked and loaded for a long time before the attack on a balmy evening in rural Pennsylvania this weekend.
