Donald Trump was recovering at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey on Sunday morning, after the assassination attempt that nearly killed him less than twenty four hours earlier at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
More than 200 miles south, in Washington DC, Joe Biden was meeting with his top advisers in the White House Situation Room to weigh his own response to a shooting that could change the trajectory of American politics — and the world.
Across the country, Republicans and Democrats were reeling from the latest burst of political violence to rock the country, renewing fears that American democracy is again boiling over: a cauldron of tension, anger and toxicity, like it was in the days after the January 6 2021 attack on the US Capitol.