Opinion | Within earshot: Predicting Donald Trump’s reaction to a near-death experience

I’m writing in a hurry. At a political rally on Saturday afternoon, Donald Trump was shot in the ear by an assassin. All I know right now is that Trump himself is fine – aside from a hole in his ear – and his attacker is dead. I also know that the rally was in Pennsylvania and that the shooter was 20 years old. That’s all I know about the incident, because it’s all I wanted to know.

Let me explain. After seeing the headlines, I went to bed on Saturday night determined not to hear any more, thinking the whole thing was just too depressing and a new low in the state of our democracy. If I had listened to the experts who were expertly commenting on the matter, I would have sunk deeper into despair. My life, I thought, is too short to devote any more of it to an attention-seeking idiot who now gets to play the martyr.

I went for a run early Sunday, still knowing the aforementioned “nearly nothing.” As I ran, I realized that my near-total ignorance was not only emotionally healing, but it also gave me a certain advantage over most Americans. It allowed me to imagine in advance how Donald Trump would react to the incident. I could speculate about that reaction without predicting it, whether it was voiced by the man himself or preached by someone else. My gap in knowledge meant that I could try to predict Donald Trump’s reaction, given what I thought I knew about him, to see if I even knew him. “What will he do with it?” I thought. And more importantly, how will he use it? For his own benefit? (Of course, I get it!) For the betterment of our world? (I laughed).

Trump will use this opportunity to amplify his smug hate speech and lies.

A near-death experience is a frightening thing. It changes lives. Libraries are full of stories of people who have miraculously survived a near-death experience: plane crashes, overdoses, wars, the list is endless. In the stories these survivors tell, their encounters shake them to their core and teach them things about the world and about themselves. As if reborn and given a second chance, they turn within, rethink their values, and become more understanding and kind. Saint Paul was struck down and blinded on the road to Damascus, an experience that shook his core and led him to stop murdering Christians and instead love them and take up their cause.

So I’ve chosen not to hear about Donald Trump’s reaction until today (Monday). I’ve made it a point not to read the headlines (although I did hear by chance a few minutes ago that the shooter was a registered Republican). I want to know what I know about the man. His near-death experience is the stuff of new lives and new values, and yet I can’t for the life of me believe he will use that experience to turn inward or become a kinder, more understanding person.

Since I still know the whole thing almost completely, I can say it now. What will he make of it? I can predict with great certainty that he will exploit it to the fullest, as a golden political opportunity rather than as an occasion to rethink everything he has ever thought. If he turns inward, he will find nothing there but the selfish and ignorant child that has always been there. As a result, he will turn not to his Bible, but to his comic books. He will demand to be worshipped as a superhero, a man of steel who fires bullets (he points to his ear). Remember, this is a man-child who wanted to step out onto a balcony of Walter Reed Hospital as President of the United States in a Superman shirt. He had to be talked out of it. Of the tens of millions of Americans who have been infected with Covid-19, I know of only one over the age of seven who wanted to play superhero because of it.

Donald Trump will seize this opportunity and amplify his smug hate speech and lies. Worst of all, he will pander to his evangelical base, claiming that the Democratic devils wanted him dead, but Jesus kept him alive as their only hope and savior. His followers will praise him for breaking the first commandment, and while he basks in their glory, his advisers will rush to help him adjust his Bible. The revised Trump versionso he doesn’t hold it upside down. That’s my prediction.