In a country already on edge, the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump has enraged his supporters, paused the Democratic campaign and raised fears of further political violence in the run-up to November's election.
The incident has also put the US Secret Service under intense scrutiny for failing to prevent the attempted killing.
Trump's Republican allies painted him as a hero in the aftermath, seizing on the image of him with his ear bloodied and fist raised, appearing to mouth the words "Fight! Fight! Fight!".
Whereas Trump has regularly used violent language with his followers, advisers and allies of the former president flipped the script on his Democratic opponent President Joe Biden, saying it was the demonisation of the Republican presidential candidate that led to the assassination attempt.
"Today is not just some isolated incident. The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump's attempted assassination," US Senator JD Vance of Ohio, a top candidate to be Trump's running mate, said on X.
Biden moved quickly to try to defuse the situation, denouncing the attack as unacceptable political violence and pulling election ads attacking Trump.
"There's no place in America for this kind of violence. It's sick," Biden told reporters.
The motivation of the shooter is not yet known. The suspect, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, was a registered Republican, according to state voter records.
Crooks previously made a $15 donation to a political action committee that raises money for left-leaning and Democratic politicians. In the short term, the attack will likely boost Trump's appearances in Milwaukee this week at the Republican National Convention as he accepts his party's presidential nomination, fortifying the sense of grievance and estrangement his supporters already feel towards the nation's political class.
Within hours of the shooting, Trump's campaign sent out a text asking voters to contribute to the campaign.
"They're not after me, they're after you," the message read.
Billionaires Elon Musk and Bill Ackman also swiftly endorsed Trump. "I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery," Musk said on X, the social media site he owns.
Chris LaCivita, the co-manager of Trump's campaign, said on X that "for years and even today, leftist activists, Democrat donors and now even Joe Biden have made disgusting remarks and descriptions of shooting Donald Trump ... it's high time they be held accountable for it ... the best way is through the ballot box."
LaCivita was apparently referring to recent remarks by Biden made in the context of asking his supporters to focus on beating Trump rather than his own performance. "So, we're done talking about the debate, it's time to put Trump in a bullseye," said Biden.
The US is grappling with the biggest and most sustained increase in political violence since the 1970s. Of 14 fatal political attacks since supporters of Trump stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in which the perpetrator or suspect had a clear partisan leaning, 13 were right-wing assailants. One was on the left.
Despite being a former president, Trump has campaigned as an outsider insurgent, complaining that he has long been targeted by the federal “deep state” and Biden’s administration to prevent him from reclaiming power.
He has typically employed violent, degrading and even apocalyptic rhetoric while doing so, warning of a “bloodbath” if he is not elected and saying immigrants in the US illegally are “poisoning the blood of our country”.
Some Republicans were already agitated by his continued stoking of the fire.
“If the country wasn’t a powder keg before, it is now,” said Chip Felkel, a Republican operative in South Carolina who has opposed Trump.
Brad Bannon, a Democratic strategist, said the shooting could benefit Trump politically because it feeds into his campaign narrative that the country is off-track.
“The attempted assassination creates sympathy for Trump,” Bannon said. “It also confirms the idea to voters that something is fundamentally wrong in this nation, which is an idea that drives support for him.”
The Secret Service’s conduct has been questioned by US law enforcement and intelligence experts amid reports that an eyewitness frantically drew the attention of the police to a person crawling on to a rooftop with a rifle during the rally.
Speaking to the BBC, the witness described what appeared to be indifference and a lax attitude to a potential threat both from the police and Secret Service as he and his friends were “pointing” at the alleged shooter for “two or three minutes”.
It appears that the people responsible for Trump’s safety dropped the ball, Alexey Filatov, retired lieutenant colonel of the Russian Federal Security Service and veteran counter-terrorism specialist, told Sputnik, explaining that the former president’s security was provided by three groups: his bodyguards, local police and the Secret Service.
According to the expert, it seems that there was no proper communication between the groups, Filatov noted, adding that law enforcement and security personnel for some reason also failed to secure all nearby rooftops in the vicinity.
Cape Times