When an assassin murdered Charlie Kirk in September 2025, the MAGA movement seized the moment to demand a campaign of repression. Vice President Vance called for an ambitious program to “go after the NGO network that foments, facilitates, and engages in violence.” He named the Ford Foundation, Open Society Foundations, and The Nation magazine as examples of candidates for the retaliation he had in mind. The people who faced consequences after the killing almost universally did so for things they had written or spoken, not for acts of violence. In November, Reuters counted some 600 cases of people who were fired, suspended, or otherwise disciplined for their speech about Kirk’s life and death.
Now another gunman has attacked political targets. At the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, a man discharged a firearm in the vicinity of hundreds of people from the worlds of politics, media, and business—among them, the president and vice president of the United States. Although much about the event remains unclear, the available evidence suggests that the gunman was motivated by an anti-Trump agenda. Yet this time, MAGA’s immediate response to political violence has been much less aggressive. At his press conference after Saturday’s attempted shooting, President Trump cited the attack as proof of the need for his wished-for White House ballroom. Social-media accounts that take their cues from the White House promptly echoed the message.
Trump cares a lot about his ballroom. People who seek his favor have learned to care too. But still, attempted murder as an after-the-fact justification for a home renovation? It seems not only radically beside the point but also quite a humiliating climbdown from last fall’s project to use the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk to consolidate MAGA’s political domination.
The unusual caution may indicate a White House intuition that this particular gunman is not a promising candidate to cast as an agent of a broad conspiracy. Trump has characterized the shooter as a “lone wolf whack job.” Early reporting includes indications that the alleged gunman had poorly considered his heinous plans, not least that he carried a shotgun—not exactly a sniper’s weapon. A degree of deference to reality itself represents something new for the Trump White House.
As bad news accumulates for the president—the backfiring of Trump’s attempted congressional gerrymanders, the worsening of the U.S. economy, plunging poll numbers, a gathering global oil crisis—the energy and self-confidence seem to be seeping out of this administration. Trump had to relent on a scheme to prosecute Fed Chair Jerome Powell for disobeying White House commands to cut interest rates. He had to let go of Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi. Chatter in Washington suggests that Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard may soon follow. So far Trump appears to be bypassing a chance to use an incident of political violence to consolidate personal power.
It all feels like the ending of a chapter, a milestone of an authoritarian project’s faltering under the weight of its arrogance and accumulated mistakes.
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