The above photograph, taken by veteran AP photographer Evan Vucci, has become an instantly iconic image, shared thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) of times across social media globally in the last 14 hours. An image which captures the moment immediately following yesterday’s failed assassination attempt on former President Trump, but which also speaks to other themes quite forcefully.
These themes were not, of course, “intended” by the photographer — this was not a staged image, after all, it was an extremely candid photograph, expertly shot in an exceptionally chaotic and stressful situation, which perfectly captured a very specific moment in time.
That image, however, happens to have ripple effects in the viewers of it, and those effects seem to very different, depending on the viewer. In this sense, it seems to function as a kind of “Rorschach Test” — a psychological test where viewers of a series of inkblot images are asked to describe what they see. Rorschach tests tend to reflect much more about the viewer than they do of the “objective character” of the images being viewed.
Vucci’s instantly iconic image works this way.
Some people see, in the image, a kind of defiance in the face of danger, or adversity, or even of political violence in general, and therefore see something quite admirable about its portrayal of Trump. Others seem to view the same image and see it as encapsulating the essence of what is wrong with Trump and his supporters — either a gaudy tendency towards showmanship, or a stubborn-ness and an irrational defiance in the face of criticism, or what have you, that they have always disliked about Trump and/or his supporters, and which they see reflected in this image.
While some may understandably find the latter “interpretation” of Vucci’s photograph to be disturbing in the context of the shooting that took place right before it, nevertheless I think that this reaction, which can be seen across the more “Trump-critical” parts of social media currently (apart from actual politicians, who are highly constrained by expected protocol for these situations), is a useful lens into the impact of polarization on the American population, and just how divided the current environment is.
For all the talk about how the polarization narrative is overblown, and the idea that most Americans are moderates, the reaction to this event belies that premise rather strongly, it seems to me. This is not the reaction we have seen to earlier assassination attempts, even of figures that were at least somewhat polarizing, like Ronald Reagan. The reaction to this event was immediate, strong and overwhelmingly partisan in nature, again by comparison to other similar types of events that have occurred in the lifetimes of Americans who are currently still alive.
For the supporters of President Trump, the photo sums up in a visual way what "Trumpism" is about. Not what Trump himself is about, mind you -- as far as I can tell, Trump is about himself, first and last -- ego and narcissism. But "Trumpism" is, at its core, a band of people who see themselves as being "shot" by the people who run America, but defiantly getting back up and shaking their fist at the "elite" who run the country, with most of the expression of that defiance consisting of voting for Trump.
Despite all of the “hot takes” during the last 14 or so hours about the positive impact of the assassination attempt, and particularly this image, on Trump’s prospects in the election, the prevailing MAGA interpretation of the image isn't exactly a great campaign message outside people who are already sympathetic to Trump, I think. And in many ways, it works as a kind of “anti-icon” for people who are highly motivated to vote against Trump as much as it does as a rallying cry for Trump’s base.
I think this is why the already-famous image is so compelling: people who are sympathetic to the idea of MAGA (even if they dislike Trump) will see something vaguely appealing about the defiance portrayed in the image, whereas people who are deeply unsympathetic to MAGA will see the essence of what is wrong with so many Americans portrayed in a particularly crystallized way.
The image "works" for both pro and anti Trump narratives in that way, which is what makes it an instantly iconic image and perhaps one of the finest political photographs ever made. It distills, in terms of what it reveals in the viewer, the present political moment in the United States nearly perfectly.