Just 0.02 per cent. A tiny, tiny proportion but the degree of error or fortune that spared both Donald Trump and the world facing an entirely different outlook this week.

That tiny proportion empowers a defiant Trump to continue to face down the forces that a large, large proportion of Americans think are arraigned against him. And them.

If the shot fired by Thomas Crooks had been that 0.02 per cent more accurate (just 2.5 centimetres over a 130-metre trajectory) Donald Trump would be yet another victim of America’s gun violence, the sixth former, serving or aspiring president to be felled by a bullet.

He was a mere flick of the head from joining them and just one of a predicted 20,000 US citizens likely to die by gun violence this year.

And in that case, the defiance would be someone else’s to own. Or perhaps in the possession of the same angry mobs that tore through Washington’s Capitol Building on the now-notorious January 6, 2021.

Such is life, its fate shaped by both small twists and large turns.

The image of a bloodied Trump rising, surrounded by guards and stopping to punch the air is the defining image of this decade.

Politically, it........

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