Will assassination attempt give Trump a Reagan-esque bump?

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“A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.” — William Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces

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John Hinckley Jr. was no Squeaky Fromme.

Fromme was the mouse-voiced Charles Manson follower who on Sept. 5, 1975, had the intention of assassinating then-President Gerald Ford. Dressed in a red robe, she wanted to press Ford on the plight of California redwoods.

Squeaky was packing a Colt .45 semi-auto pistol.

She pointed the gun at Ford and reportedly squeaked: “It wouldn’t go off, it didn’t go off. Can you believe it? It didn’t go off.”

John Hinckley Jr. was an entirely different matter.

Following the attempted assassination attempt on President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally that left a firefighter and the gunman dead, the Hinckley file is officially reopened.

How did his brazen 1981 assassination attempt on U.S. President Ronald Reagan — mere months into his first term — change the political scoreboard?

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Former New York Post, Daily News,  Miami Herald and NBC News political editor Gregg Birnbaum now teaches journalism in Miami at Florida International University and the University of Florida.

Birnbaum said “I don’t know” if the failed assassination will play a role in the defining November election. And then, he hints that it will indeed.

“Anytime someone survives an assassination attempt and is wounded, how could that not give you a political boost? And even in these digital times, those photos were so powerful. They were insane,” Birnbaum told The Toronto Sun.

“As a result, the voting public is extending sympathy and well wishes to Trump.”

My erudite friend and former colleague (we worked together at the New York Post) cited Campbell’s 1949 tome, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, as evidence.

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In the book, Campbell examines the myth-making structure of the archetypal hero’s journey. Like Reagan. Like Trump.

“He (Campbell) discovered that the myth of the hero is in so many cultures, whether it’s Europe, Asia, Africa or the Americas,” Birnbaum said.

“The hero’s journey includes Jesus, Moses and Mohammed. There is something in human psychology that needs a hero.”

The veteran political observer noted that if you survive an assassination attempt, that can make a person a hero, a survivor.

“‘This will kill the Democrats’, that’s what I was thinking,” Birnbaum said, adding that he hasn’t seen the polling but noted that Biden is definitely “going backwards.”

“Something like that 9the assassination attempt) changes the narrative, it’s got to be a plus. And I think it will make Joe Biden more open to stepping aside.

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“There’s no doubt it gave the Trump campaign a shot of adrenalin. He told the Post that he asked for a more unifying speech and he’s taking steps to unify the party.”

The tragic events in Pennsylvania “added electricity and a little special something”, Birnbaum said. “They are energized.”

Frequently in election campaigns, enthusiasm among campaign staffers on the ground can win the day. Right now, the Trump team has it.

“Biden is trailing and people are just not that excited about Joe Biden.”

Reagan survived the March 30, 1981 attempt on his life. His press secretary, James Brady, didn’t have the Gipper’s luck and took a bullet in the head causing brain damage that shattered his life. Brady died in 2014 and his death was ruled a homicide.

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Hinckley was never driven by ideology or a particular hatred for Reagan. Instead, he was obsessed with actress Jodie Foster for her star turn as a teenage prostitute in Martin Scorcese’s seminal 1976 movie, Taxi Driver. He was trying to get her attention and assassinating the president would be a pretty good way to get it.

Now 69, Hinckley was sprung in 2022 after 40 years in the slammer. In typical Tabloid Americana fashion, he weighed in on the Trump assassination attempt via a social-media post.

He wrote on X: “Violence is not the way to go. Give peace a chance.”

As for the 20-year-old who tried to kill Trump, he was taken off the board seconds after he started firing.

My old friend Birnbaum thinks the murder attempt could help Trump but he added that November is a long, long way off. And in today’s rapid-fire news cycle, the hero’s journey could be over and forgotten in weeks.

“Every class, I give my students a 20-minute summary of political news. I told them this week that in the next 20 minutes something else big will break,” Birnbaum said.

“About halfway through one of my students got a news alert. Biden has COVID. Things can change a lot by November,” he said.

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@HunterTOSun

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