By Raul Antonio Capote on July 15, 2024 from Havana
image: Jorge
The US elections are almost at the final stretch and the machinery conceived to preserve the power of the 1% of the citizens of that country (the richest and most powerful), greased with billions of dollars, that shows its real gear.
Amid lies, manipulations, mockery, tricks and bullets, the process that in the end will not be decided by the vote of the people, but by the will and interests of the powerful as always, is taking place.
As part of the campaign, in search of voters’ support and donors’ money, the presidential candidates hold rallies with their bases, go on tours, face each other in television debates, among other actions.
Trump Threatens Cuba in Doral
The former president held a campaign rally just a few days ago at his golf club in Doral, near Miami, Florida, which was attended by a large group of his followers.
With his usual rants and very well studied colloquial phrases, the showman of American politics executed an oratorical piece in which he characterized the Democratic Party as “divided, in chaos and with a large-scale collapse”.
He went so far as to claim that his Democratic rivals cannot decide “which of their candidates is less fit to be president: the “sleepy, crooked” Joe Biden or “Laffin Kamala,” something that can only be heard in a Yankee presidential campaign.
In the presence of several Florida Republican legislators, including Senator Marco Rubio, the politician did not miss the opportunity to ingratiate himself with the staunchest enemies of the Cuban people, in his quest for votes.
For many it may seem implausible to hear a person who aspires to return to the highest political office in his country, stringing together such an accumulation of falsehoods, manipulations and threats; but if they review his legacy, the record he left behind after his administration, they will understand that it is his usual way of behaving.
Regarding Cuba, Donald Trump affirmed: “I will never allow you to be silenced, we do not allow Russian nuclear submarines and warships to be surrounding us 90 miles off Cuba”.
The “discursive jewel” of his anti-Cuban reference came when, using a pocket mystique, he said that “unfortunately there is a villainous force, there is a black force that is sneaking into this country where they have taken god out of the public way”.
Venezuela and Nicaragua were not spared from his diatribes either, something usual in his oratory.
When Weapons Intervene
However, in the midst of all this, a news item grabbed global attention: former U.S. President Donald Trump was the target of an assassination attempt with a firearm on Saturday, when he was holding an election rally in the city of Butler, Pennsylvania.
The attacker, identified by the authorities as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20 years old and registered to vote as a Republican, was shot and killed by Secret Service agents.
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the assailant fired up to eight bullets at the former president with an AR-15 type rifle, about 270 meters away from where Trump was speaking.
The AR-15 rifle used in the attack is one of the most popular in the nation. Millions of Americans own a similar weapon. Described as “affordable, customizable, lightweight and lethal,” by gun dealers, the media has dubbed the rifle the “weapon of choice for mass murderers.”
To name just a few examples, AR-15 rifles were used in the mass shootings at Sandy Hook, Parkland, Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs, Pulse nightclub, Uvalde, Nashville’s Covenant School and Louisville’s Old National Bank.
Creating the Frankenstein of gun violence may be profitable for the big companies that manufacture these instruments of death, but the monster always ends up turning on its creators.
On the social network x the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez wrote,”As victims of attacks and terrorism for 65 years, Cuba ratifies its historic position of condemnation of all forms of violence.”
“The arms business and the escalation of political violence in the U.S. is conducive to incidents such as the one that took place this Saturday in that country,” he added.
Killing A President; Nothing New Under the American Sun
The attack on the Republican candidate marks a new episode in the bloody history of attacks on U.S. politicians. The story began in 1865, when Abraham Lincoln became the first president to be assassinated.
James A. Garfield, in 1881, was the second president to be killed, while in 1901 William McKinley added to the list.
One of the best known events in this saga of crimes occurred on November 22, 1963, when the thirty-fifth president, John F. Kennedy, was mortally wounded in Dallas, Texas.
He was followed by his younger brother, Robert Kennedy, who died on June 6, after being shot and killed while campaigning for the 1968 presidential election.
Ronald Reagan, the 40th president, was nearly killed by a gunman in March 1981 in Washington.
Every president of that country has suffered an assassination attempt at one time or another, but if we were to add to these those that have been organized from the White House against leaders who are “annoying” to them in other regions of the world, it would amount to volumes.
We regret the violent act against the Republican candidate. Cuba has a clean record of confronting terrorism, but as a popular saying goes, he who sows the wind reaps the storm.
Source Granma, translation: Resumen Latinoamericano – English