Our republic averted a national catastrophe by one inch: The tilt of former president Donald Trump’s head, an imperceptible difference in the wind, a slight shake in the nervous hand of the would-be assassin.
Change any one of these factors and our country and the world would never be the same.
We should all thank God that Trump—the front-running candidate in the 2024 presidential election—walked away from his rally in Pennsylvania with his life.
Trump said during his speech at the Republican National Convention that he shouldn’t be here today. To his credit he acknowledged that he is alive “only by the grace of God.”
I won’t presume to say what purpose God had in sparing the former president and sparing America from unthinkable turmoil. But what played out on that Pennsylvania stage was too incredible to believe it was random chance.
Trump turned his head the split second before the bullet arrived. Instead of a clean strike, Trump said he felt the shot whiz past and through his ear and then had the good sense to fall to the ground before more shots followed—something he may not have done if the first bullet had missed entirely.
The whole thing was so incredible some Trump skeptics have made the outrageous claim that it was staged, even though the nation wasn’t altogether spared from tragedy. Sadly, we mourn the life of one brave firefighter who was killed by the assassin while shielding his family from the bullets.
In his convention speech, Trump paid tribute to Corey Comperatore and others who were seriously injured by stray bullets at the rally. Nobody should have to take a bullet for going to a political rally, and we all grieve with the family members whose father, husband, or brother was taken from them.
But I shudder to think what would have happened to our country in the ensuing months and years if Trump had died on that stage.
The attempted assassination came on the eve of the RNC, before Trump had yet named his vice-presidential running mate. If the attempt on Trump’s life had been successful, the RNC would have been thrown into chaos—if it was held at all.
Regardless, the next president of the United States would have been determined by an assassin’s bullet, not by the will of the people. Public trust would have been irreparably harmed, and an already divided nation would have been torn apart at the seams.
Instead, Trump left the stage of the rally with his fist raised resolutely to the sky as the crowd cheered and chanted “USA, USA!”
The RNC, thankfully, wasn’t marked by anger and a desire for retribution. Instead, it ended with a message of unity, love of country, and gratitude to God for preventing the unthinkable from happening in our republic.
Maybe the tragic and near catastrophic events in Pennsylvania will serve as a poignant reminder to all of us that there is a God in Heaven looking down on us who saw fit to spare our nation on that day. That’s not because Trump is perfect or holy, and not because we Americans have been acting like moral and virtuous people deserving of his divine protection. And yet, by God’s grace, the schemes of the wicked were foiled and America as we know it is not yet lost.
James Madison, the father of the Constitution, saw God’s Providential hand in protecting America from the time of its founding. Madison wrote, “It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of the Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution.”
From George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware to the Battle of Baltimore to the Cuban Missile Crisis to the assassination attempt against Trump, America has had its share of close calls over the past 248 years.
As Benjamin Franklin famously said, America is “A republic, if you can keep it.” Indeed.
As God demonstrated on Saturday, America is a republic, if we can keep it by the grace of God.