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Will the Assassination Attempt on Trump Change his Rhetoric for Better or Worse?
Yesterday morning, before the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, I listened as political pundits compared the level of political division America is currently experiencing to the division in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Hours later, the point was underscored when someone shot at the former president at his political rally.
In 1972, Governor George Wallace was shot at a rally when running for president. Wallace was a vocal segregationist who Martin Luther King Jr called the “most dangerous racist in America”. Wallace campaigned as a populist against the “elite” and riled up similar crowds in a similar way to Donald Trump.
Shirley Chisolm ran in the same race against Wallace, and the more established candidates, George McGovern and incumbent Richard Nixon. Chisolm, as the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress, garnered attention and criticism when she visited George Wallace in the hospital after he was shot. She believed in showing compassion for him despite the fact that he stood adamantly against integration and equality. Chisholm reported that Wallace cried and was deeply touched by her visit.
Whether it was the visit from Chisolm, or simply his close brush with death (he was paralyzed from the waist down), Wallace changed his…
