Shots fired

VIEWPOINT

By RALPH HARDIN

Evening Times Editor H ere’s a weird bit of historical trivia you might not know: For more than 100 years, every 20 years for a long, long time, every U.S. president who won the election that year died in office. Let me explain …

It goes all the way back to 1820. William Henry Harrison won that election, only to die in office just a few weeks later. He was the first president to die in office. In 1840, Zachary Taylor died just months after winning the election.

Of course, we all know about the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, just weeks after the end of the Civil War. He won the Election of 1860 and did manage to survive his first term, but only made it a few weeks into his second term.

The winner of the Election of 1880 was James Garfield. While not as well covered in the history books, he too was assassinated, just months after taking office.

In 1900, William McKinley was the winner (his second term actually) but was also assassinated, just a few months after beginning his second term, which was famously completed by Teddy Roosevelt.

Warren Harding won the 1920 election, but two years into his presidency, he died under very mysterious circumstances. Officially, it was natural causes but there are a lot of very convincing arguments that suggest foul play. Nevertheless, the trend continued.

Franklin Roosevelt was first elected in 1932, but he went on to win the presidency four times. It was that third election, in 1940, that put him in line to continue the “curse,” as he died just before the end of World War II.

And then, there’s the assassination of President John Kennedy. Kennedy won the 1960 election and served a little more than two years before being shot and killed in Dallas, Texas in 1963.

The pattern was finally disrupted, but it could have continued, as President Ronald Reagan was shot, just weeks after taking office after winning the Election of 1980. Thankfully, he survived, otherwise George W. Bush, who passed out while choking on a pretzel after winning the 2000 election, might have also died (Not that it’s really a “curse,” but stranger things have happened).

Well, you can probably guess what inspired that grim little walk down memory lane. Like many of you, I was minding my own business, enjoying a quiet Saturday afternoon when suddenly, there was news out of Pennsylvania.

My daughter’s boyfriend was the first to actually alert us to what was going on, saying that someone tried to assassinate Donald Trump. He’s a little prone to sensationalism so I kind of scoffed at the notion, but my wife turned on the news and sure enough, it was pretty sensational all on its own and a very serious situation.

Someone had really tried to kill a former (and possible future) president of the United States in broad daylight. Now, I’ve never been a Trump fan (and I’m still not) but there is no place for this kind of violence toward any kind of elected official, regardless of your political affiliation. If you were like, “Too bad he missed,” or any variation of that idea, you’re part of the problem with this country.

Fortunately, Trump was able to escape with only a minor injury to his right ear (and wow, is that crazy, how close the shooter came to what would surely have been a fatal head shot). The shooter was himself shot and killed. I’m glad he was taken down before he could get off any more rounds, but I do wish he could have been taken alive. Maybe by understanding what his motives and mindset were, we could get a better handle on all the divisiveness that leads to this sort of reactionary violence.

I do wish people would stop saying God stepped in and delivered Trump from the assassin’s bullets, because the guy did shoot some people and killed one of them. You can like Trump all you want, but if God stepped in, did he not like the other victims enough to save them?

In any event, whether you like Trump or not, the visual of him rising up, bloody ear and all, raising a defiant fist while yelling, “Fight! Fight!” as the crowd chanted “USA! USA!” is about as American as you can get and might have been just enough of a humanizing moment to sway the election pendulum in his favor – if it wasn’t already going that way. If nothing else, the image will make for a great T-shirt. He certainly seems to be earning that nickname of “Teflon Don” that he’s had since his first legal troubles in the 1980s.

So, eight deaths, and now three near-deaths … Maybe he really did win the 2020 election?