Whew. In this quicksilver, "terrible moment," be careful what you wish for. Amidst our pious assertions political violence is always wrong, the tinpot candidate of ever-erratic political violence who's celebrated, advocated, excused and craved violence just got it in unexpected ways. Relishing his martyr's moment - and clad in a little "ear diaper" - he shows no sign of slowing his fascist march to power, proclaiming to supporters, fist in air, “I am Donald J. Trump. FEAR NOT!" Actually, we think we'll fear.

After Saturday's shooting, Biden echoed other Dems, did the sober, responsible thing and declared, "There is no place in America for this kind of violence or for any violence ever. Period. No exceptions." The founders, he went on, "created a democracy that gave reason and balance a chance to prevail over brute force. That’s the America we must be...Violence in America like this is just unheard of." Sadly, not so, writes David Frum, who notes that "assassinations, lynchings, riots, and pogroms have stained every page of American political history." Now, "Violence stalks the president who has rejoiced in violence to others," entirely, historically apt when "fascism feasts on violence." "Trump and his supporters envision a new place for violence as their defining political message," says Frum. "Fascist movements are secular religions (that) offer martyrs as their proof of truth...The Trump movement now improves on that: The leader himself will be the martyr in chief, his own blood the basis for his bid for power and vengeance."

Thus did Trump, with his showman's flair after having possibly, barely been grazed by a random bullet or more ingloriously nicked by flying glass from his teleprompter, respond not with checking on others or seeking to calm them, but with a histrionic fist in the air and clarion call, three times, to "Fight!" - the same word he used on January 6. Similarly, predictably, did inveterate grifters rush to hawk rock-band-like assassination merch - mugs, stickers, sweatshirts, trading cards. Within hours came Amazon's No. 1 best-seller "novelty t-shirts," emblazoned with that instantly iconic image - the flag, the blood, the fist - blaring "Bulletproof," "For God and Country," "Legends Never Die," "You Missed," "Impeached, Arrested, Convicted, Shot, Still Standing." Just as quickly, Trump's campaign set up a shiny new fundraising site featuring the same flashy image shrieking, "I am Donald J. Trump. FEAR NOT!" Also, "I will always love you for supporting me. Unity. Peace. Make America Great Again.”

Alas, the plea for "unity" and "peace" was as self-serving as it was short-lived by a party who've embraced anger and violence in their messaging and a leader who blithely, viciously uses threats of and incitement to that violence to quell opposition. The bland calls to lower the rhetorical temperature were met with a sick rush of threats, taunts, and crackpot charges, though the shooter was a Republican fan of Demolition Ranch videos about guns and explosives and his parents were flagged in 2016 by the Trump team as "strong Republicans" likely worried about gun rights. The "rhetoric of the radical left," Republicans raved, "led directly" to the shooting. Georgia Rep. Mike Collins: "Joe Biden sent the orders." Some blamed fake news - Fox chyron: "MEDIA LAYED (sic) GROUNDWORK FOR VIOLENCE AGAINST TRUMP" - or a complicit Secret Service led by a "DEI hire," aka woman. Whatever: Wingnuts on social media declared it their "last damn straw." "Let’s give it to them," one snarled. “CIVIL.FUCKING.WAR."

In truth, Aaron Rupar notes, "Multiple things are true about Trump's shooting. Political violence is wrong, and nobody has done more to worsen the climate of political violence in this country." He's spewed ceaseless violent rhetoric, threatening countless "others," aka anyone not a MAGA freak. He urged rally attendees to beat up protesters, Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by,” "2nd Amendment people" to attack Hillary Clinton, police to "don't be too nice" to suspects, fans to "go after" New York A.G. Tish James, the military to "just shoot" BLM protesters and migrants, Gen. Mark Milley be executed for a phone call he didn't like. He belittled an attack on Paul Pelosi and a plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer. He vowed "when the looting starts, the shooting starts," "there has to be retribution," "you'll never take back our country with weakness," "big, big trouble" if he's indicted, and "a bloodbath" if he loses the election. He watched Jan. 6 with glee, champions its insurrectionists as "hostages" and promises to pardon them.

Cult members, often armed, have followed ugly suit. A Kansas fundraiser offered a Biden effigy to punch, Don Jr. touted an image of Biden bound and gagged, Kari Lake warned millions of NRA members "are going to put on the armor of God, and maybe strap on a Glock," Tom Cotton urged MAGA-ites to "take matters into your own hands" to get "pro-Hamas mobs (out) of the way," Matt Gaetz urged "we hunt down" BLM "terrorists," Ted Cruz said his job is to "grab a battle axe (and) fight the barbarians," Mark Robinson said, "Some folks need killing." House Repubs wore AR-15 lapel pins or sent "kinda murdery" Christmas cards of loved ones cradling assault weapons. GOP candidates ran bonkers, vengeful ads featuring Dems in Klan hoods, armed thugs "hunting RINOs," AR-15 "liberty machines" to stay "safe from looting hordes in Atlanta or a tyrannical government in Washington"; Klan Mom MTG, who once urged Nancy Pelosi be executed, hefted a big-ass gun and "blew away the Democrats' Socialist agenda." They all seem nice.

In MAGA's us-and-them world, they're all good with targeting the “them” - migrants, trans kids, Marxists, people with weird names or skin any shade suspiciously darker than their own. Because Trump has always denied his deadly rhetoric contributes in any way to the country's divisions - "It brings people together" - his acolytes can argue straight-faced his innocent victimhood at the lunatic hands of the latest AR-15-fueled, much-aggrieved white guy. "Almost any criticism of Trump is already being spun by MAGA as an incitement to assassinate him," writes Edward Luce of the Financial Times. "This is an Orwellian attempt to silence what remains of the effort to stop him from regaining power." It's also a good way to distract from his wildly unpopular authoritarian plans and the fact - see wildly unpopular - the only way Republicans can gain power is by lying and cheating while celebrating his Nietzschian powers of shamelessness. "They try to jail him. They try to kill him. It will not work," raved Greg Abbott. "He is indomitable.”

He is also, arguesThe New Yorker's David Remnick and other sane people, "the most violent person in contemporary U.S. politics," a "man who seeks power through the humiliation and subordination of disdained others," a wannabe authoritarian who wants to destroy democracy running on an openly authoritarian platform: "This isn't a smear, it's a fact." A clumsy pot-shot from a sick kid does nothing to change that, Remnick notes, "nor does it absolve him of his past misdeeds." Unlike earlier fringe outliers from Joe McCarthy to Islamic Jihadists posing a "radical challenge" to America, Trump has formed "stable coalitions with accepted stakeholders," from colonizing one of two major parties to transforming SCOTUS into a fiery pit of Christo-fascism; he's also defeated or stalled every legal impediment to his rise and brought his thugs and felons into "the summit of the American elite." Now, a grazed ear "secures his undeserved position as a partner in the protective rituals of the democracy he despises."

The shooting has prompted "appropriate expressions of dismay and condemnation from every prominent voice in American life," notes Remnick of "polite hypocrisy" and conventional calls for unity that are socially useful but singularly dangerous by giving Trump an unseemly sheen of legitimacy. "The familiar practice is (to) proclaim Americans have more things in common than (those) that divide them," he writes. "Those soothing words, true in the past, are less true now. Nobody seems to have language to say: We abhor, reject, repudiate, and punish all political violence, even as we maintain that Trump remains himself a promoter of such violence" - and even as he and his right-wing collaborators rush to exploit a gunman's folly "as their path to exonerate past crimes........

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