Reagan’s Shooting United America. Trump’s Will Tear It Apart |
Outside of the Washington Hilton in D.C. on March 30, 1981, Ronald Reagan was shot. It was a seminal moment in his presidency and in U.S. history.
Footage of the incident looped endlessly on TV, showing a smiling Reagan waving as he returned to his car outside the hotel after speaking at a labor event. Then six shots rang out, creating chaos and confusion, as Reagan was violently shoved into his car.
His press secretary, James Brady, lay on the sidewalk, blood flowing from his head. It was at once disturbing and mesmerizing.
The ordinariness of the concrete and the Capitol cityscape made it more haunting. History—and specifically, America’s history of political violence—didn’t just happen in ornate building chambers or on battlefields. Sometimes it happens at a hotel. Martin Luther King was killed on April 4, 1968 on a balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. Robert F. Kennedy was shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles in June 1968.
Reagan, too, that morning in March. He came within inches of death. Brady would never fully recover from his injuries.
From his hospital bed, the president famously joked to his wife, “Honey, I forgot to duck.” It was gallows humor, but it worked. It humanized him, and all of the life-altering aspects of........