Almost immediately after shots rang out at Donald Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, the former President flinched onstage, grabbed at his face, and dropped to the ground. In the chaotic moments that followed, Trump was helped to his feet by Secret Service agents, and delivered definitive proof of life: he raised his right fist toward the sky and mouthed to the crowd, “Fight.” In the news photo that circulated shortly after, taken by Evan Vucci, of the Associated Press, Trump is set against a clear blue sky and four Secret Service agents clutch at him, one of whom stares directly at the camera, his eyes shielded by a pair of black sunglasses. An American flag appears to almost float over the scene. Trump’s lips are pursed, his eyes narrowed, and his chin slightly raised. There are streaks of blood atop his right ear, and on his cheek. He is looking out far beyond what the camera can take in—at the public, at the future—and he is defiant. Whoever tried to kill him failed. It is already the indelible image of our era of political crisis and conflict.
Other images, screenshots, and fragments of information rushed onto social media and filled out the story. In one, a Secret Service agent kneeling on the grass turns his body and extends a finger, presumably to identify the shooter, who had reportedly taken up a position on a rooftop outside the rally. In another, taken just after Trump fell to the stage, the former President’s head is framed, a few inches off of the ground with blood dribbling down his cheek, between someone’s legs. And, in a third, taken seconds after Trump rose to his feet, he is being held by several Secret Service agents who have surrounded him; one has both hands over Trump’s head to protect him, but it almost looks as if someone is praying over him. Each of these photographs freezes the moment, draining it of the chaos that is apparent in the live streams. They also add a sense of foreboding; the figures in these images, and anyone who views them, are all waiting, with trepidation, for what comes next. The Trump campaign soon released a statement that said, “He is fine and is being checked out at a local medical facility.” Everyone should agree that that is good news. What happened is horrifying. That flag, hanging at an odd angle, almost upside down, offers a sense of the eeriness of this moment, and of the general dread.
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Some of the elements in Vucci’s image are familiar from the countless others of Trump—the red maga hat, the wisps of hair, the mouth turned down into a frown, the chin thrust forward. Ever since Trump became a politician—and even before that—the most familiar images of him have been designed and disseminated by those who oppose him, to emphasize his insolence or his aura of threat. Even those which his supporters might celebrate, such as the confident pose Trump struck for a mug shot last August, after being indicted for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, are often in settings that Trump himself would not have chosen—and are thus not fully his own. Vucci’s photograph is an emblem of this tumultuous age, when the long pattern of political violence in America has intensified. Some of the most recent targets include the Republican congressional leader Steve Scalise and Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer; on January 6, 2021, former Vice-President Mike Pence, the former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and other government leaders all narrowly escaped the baying crowds at the Capitol insurrection.
But what makes the image is Trump. In its surface details, it carries echoes of the marines at Iwo Jima. In the former President’s bloody defiance, it even evokes Rocky Balboa. On that stage, Trump seemed well aware of the image he was creating. It is an image that captures him as he would like to be seen, so perfectly, in fact, that it may outlast all the rest. ♦
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