A head-turning miracle

It is 6:10 p.m. in Butler, Pennsylvania. Former President Donald Trump has been doing his so-familiar thing, blasting "Crooked Joe Biden" at a campaign rally and proclaiming that "We had the strongest border ever — in recorded history. We had the best border."

But then he does something he has never done before. Trump turns to the left, then to the right, pointing at two big screens near his stage. "Do you guys have access to that chart that I love so much? … Oh there it is — WOW!...Take a look at that chart! …See the big red arrow, right? That’s when I left office. That was the low point…of illegal immigration ever in recorded history into our country. And then …the worst president in the history of our country took over."

Trump is now posing like a statue, his right arm extended theatrically as he points at the chart with his index finger. What Trump does not know is that his index finger is also pointing at a guy on a rooftop, 150 yards away, whose AR-15 rifle is pointing right at him.

"And if you really want to see something," Trump tells his crowd, “…take a look at what happened." What has also happened, just then, is that the index finger of the guy on the roof has just pulled the trigger.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

Trump feels something. His right hand instinctively goes to his right ear. Then he ducks behind his lectern. The New York Times’ veteran photographer Doug Mills will later discover his camera had just taken a photo that (when enlarged) shows what seems to be a bullet flying just past Trump’s head at ear level.

Trump’s head had always faced his rally crowds. But he wanted his crowd to look at the chart he loved, so he posed looking straight at the chart at his right — as if freeze-framed. Suddenly, his would-be assassin’s target was much narrower. The bullet merely clipped Trump’s right ear as it whizzed past.

We all just witnessed the making of a miracle.

We saw Trump rising from the protective Secret Service scrum — and actually stand! Right fist thrust high. Blood oozing from atop his right ear. And we heard Trump’s one-word assurance that he was alive and ever-Trump:

"Fight!" "Fight!" "Fight!"

As we watched all that, my mind filled with pain-filled memories of way-too-many assassination tragedies I had covered. April 1968: Martin Luther King was shot dead in Memphis — I arrived hours later. June 1968: I arrived at Robert F. Kennedy’s Hickory Hill estate just an hour after his 11 children inside had seen their dad killed in Los Angeles. And then there was 1981: the wounding and almost killing of President Ronald Reagan just outside the Washington Hilton.

But most of all, I was thinking about 1972: the devastating (but often forgotten) shooting of Alabama’s third party presidential primary candidate, George Wallace, in Laurel, Maryland. A would-be assassin’s five bullets left the former segregationist governor forever paralyzed. Yet Wallace, though paralyzed, became a far better person.

Wallace had been infamous for what he once said after losing a 1958 election to a segregationist — that he’d "never again" be out-N-worded (yes, he made the slur into a past-tense verb). So in 1963, as governor, Wallace promised "segregation forever" and stood in the schoolhouse door hoping to prevent Black students from enrolling in the University of Alabama. President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy sent troops to integrate the university — forever.

But after being paralyzed, Wallace became a born-again Christian, apologized for his segregationist past, was forgiven by Rep. John Lewis and was again elected governor with overwhelming Black support.

And that’s what I began thinking about Saturday, as Trump’s SUV whisked him away to safety. Could Trump be capable of a heartfelt conversion toward national unity and personal humanity?

Sunday, Trump began posting and proclaiming that he was changing his Thursday Republican convention speech from an all-out attack on Joe Biden to a noble call for national unity.

Trump posted on his Truth Social account that "it was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening." Trump also mentioned the fact I had noted and transcribed Saturday — that the turning of his head minimized the gunman’s target and probably saved his life.

But while proclaiming he is all about unity now, Trump used a most non-unifying term to characterize the other side. He posted: "In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand United, and show our True Character as Americans, remaining Strong and Determined, and not allowing Evil to Win."

Unity? Evil? Hmmm. Will we be seeing a heartfelt conversion? Or a contrived conversion of political exploitation? The future remains to be seen — maybe Thursday night.

Martin Schram, an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service, is a veteran Washington journalist, author and TV documentary executive. Readers may send him email at martin.schram@gmail.com.