A golden opportunity to make America united again

Donald Trump is not the type of man to allow an attempted assassination to dent his legendary belief in himself. Turning up, as planned, for the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, the former president combined his habitual bombast with an unusually statesmanlike pose.

The speech he is scheduled to deliver on Thursday – when he will be formally announced as the Republican presidential candidate – will be “a lot different than it would’ve been”.

“The speech I was going to give was going to be a humdinger. Had this not happened, this would’ve been one of the most incredible speeches. Honestly, it’s going to be a whole different speech now. It is a chance to bring the country together. I was given that chance."

Will he use the chance? It is to be hoped.

A near-death experience such as the one Mr Trump endured is bound to induce reflection and change perspectives. As Mr Trump graphically puts it: “I’m supposed to be dead.” The last few days have certainly made many who once spoke so scathingly and intemperately about Mr Trump to reassess some of the rhetoric they indulged themselves in. It is, however, going to be all the more difficult for Mr Trump to play the role of national unifier, both because of his record and his pugnacious nature.

The record is certainly not encouraging. He is hardly alone, but he has used violent and incendiary language about his opponents, about migrants and about virtually anyone who has got in his way. The world was shocked by the attack on Mr Trump’s life, but what can never be forgotten is the role Mr Trump played in his final days as president in the 6 January insurrection in Washington. He told his followers, infamously: “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

Shortly after came the violent invasion of the Capitol, loss of life, and the very real possibility that his own vice-president, Mike Pence, and other politicians would be assaulted by the incensed crowd. America at that point wasn’t far away from a series of assassinations, and Mr Trump has long been accused of doing nothing during that time of maximum peril.

Nor does it take much effort to recall, with a shudder, the language Mr Trump has used about women, or last year’s civil case in which a jury found him liable for sexual abuse, one of the many unprecedented aspects of his life in politics. He has promised “retribution” if he returns to office, and the Supreme Court has now granted him the prospect of immunity from prosecution if he breaks the law; one can but fear the worst from such a combination of a vengeful man unrestrained by the law, in effect an absolute monarch.

Mr Trump has rightly been given much praise for his swift action after the bullet nicked his ear, and his defiance in the face of such mortal danger showed a certain degree of bravery and spirit. Even so, as his clenched fist was held high, he mouthed the words “Fight! Fight!” to the crowd and the television audience. Understandable as it is as an immediate reaction, it might well be taken by some of his more fanatical disciples much too literally.

Even now, Mr Trump seems unwilling to accept that he lost the 2020 election. In recent remarks, he also said he would refuse to accept the result of the November election if it goes against him. In Milwaukee this week, Mr Trump should repair that failure. He must not only try to bring the country together, but repair the fabric of its democratic institutions, damage that he all too often inflicted. His wife, the former first lady Melania Trump, in a rare intervention, said after the attempt on her husband’s life that “the fabric of our gentle nation is tattered”.

Mr Trump should drop the hyperbole and stop painting the Biden administration and the Democratic Party as being engaged in some great criminal conspiracy against the American people. At the Republican National Convention, he should renounce Project 2025, and pledge to respect the traditions of an impartial civil service, a free media, and independent courts.

That really would be a humdinger of a speech.