Trump should pledge to fight for all Americans, whether they vote for him or not

MILWAUKEE — To all but his most hardened detractors, the image of Donald Trump — fist raised in defiance as blood from a failed assassination trickled down his cheek — was both heart-wrenching and inspiring. The attempt on Trump’s life has made him something he likely never expected to be in this election cycle: a sympathetic figure.

This has dramatically reset the presidential race — giving Trump a historic opportunity to unite the country and expand his base of support, while at the same time disarming Joe Biden of his only effective argument against the former president.

Just a few days before the attempted assassination, Biden warned that Trump is “even more dangerous now” than he was before. “He says if he loses, there will be a bloodbath,” Biden declared falsely. “Trump said if he wins, he’ll be a dictator on day one. He means it, folks.” Now Biden can no longer talk about dictatorships and bloodbaths, because, as he put it in his Oval Office address Sunday, “the political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated. It’s time to cool it down. And we all have a responsibility to do that.” Presumably that includes him.

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This is a devastating development for Biden’s reelection strategy. He can’t run on his record because he faces double-digit disapproval on virtually every issue and 7 in 10 Americans say he doesn’t have the “mental and cognitive health” to serve. His only case for a second term is to convince Americans that Trump poses an existential threat to our way of life. How does he do that now without violating his own pledge to “lower the temperature?” How does he attack Trump as a dictator-in-waiting without being accused of engaging in reckless, irresponsible, dangerous rhetoric that puts his opponent’s life at risk?

In other words, the assassin’s bullet grazed Trump but has effectively silenced Biden. With his opponent rhetorically disarmed, Trump can now seize the moment and use his speech at the Republican National Convention to argue that there is no greater threat to our democracy than what happened Saturday in Butler, Pa. — and present himself as the defender of American democracy........

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