David R. Kotok, July 15, 2024
(The following was first published on Cumberland Advisors’ website and via LISTSERV. For details, visit https://www.cumber.com/.)
The attempted assassination of presumptive presidential nominee and former president Donald Trump is the latest in a historical list. Worldwide, nearly all political parties’ leaders and spokespersons condemned it. From me, personally, any assassination attempt on former President Trump is unacceptable and I condemn it without qualification. I would express exactly the same message if it were an assassination attempt on our current president, Joe Biden, or on any candidate for any American public office. Murderous behavior is disturbing and distressing. It is a total violation of America’s Rule of Law.
There isn’t much more to say about the Trump assassination attempt since readers are already very familiar with the known details. For a timeline with details, I like this Wall St. Journal link: https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/trump-rally-incident. For America’s history with presidential assassination attempts, here’s a good summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_assassination_attempts_and_plots .
In each prior case within my personal experience, I can remember exactly where I was when I learned the news. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Steve Scalise, Gerald Ford, Gabby Giffords, Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Martin Luther King Jr., George Wallace, and Robert Kennedy.
In foreign locations I remember reported recent attempts in Brazil (failed), Japan (killed the duly elected government leader), and Slovakia (failed), among others.
In every case, in America or abroad, the news of an assassin’s attempt is a shock. In every case, there is condemnation regardless of political party. In every case all kinds of crazy conspiracy theories circulate, and in every case many people believe them. That is again true with Trump’s event. In the few hours since the Trump rally in Pennsylvania, social media distributed theories including that Trump arranged it himself to gain sympathy and votes and, alternatively, that progressive Democrats arranged it. You can judge for yourself the scope of human imagination at work.
After an assassination attempt, there is usually a subsequent use of the event for political purposes by antagonists and protagonists of the victim’s political views. This pattern of human behavior has been in place from antiquity (Caesar and Brutus) to modern times (India’s Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, and her son Rajiv Gandhi). In the case of Archduke Ferdinand, the assassination triggered a world war. In Israel, the assassination of Yitzchak Rabin altered the political landscape of the Middle East. Likewise, the assassination of Egypt’s Anwar Sadat slowed a peace initiative but, fortunately, didn’t completely reverse it. Egypt and Israel have not fought a war with each other since Sadat accepted a peace agreement. Sadat paid for peace with his life by assassination.
Some readers have asked about financial markets. So, I will briefly offer an opinion. For this current assassination attempt event it is too soon to draw conclusions. History shows that reactions in the first few hours or days can be dramatic but not conclusive.
Note that the betting markets reacted at once to the Trump assassination attempt by increasing the likelihood of a Trump victory by 4 full points. Bloomberg reported that within hours, with PredictIt as the source. Bitcoin jumped in weekend trading. During the coming week I look for increased volatility and changes in the US dollar and in the outlook for US Treasury interest rates, as traders may repeat the patterns of the post-Biden–Trump debate trajectory.
IMO, any longer term outlook remains uncertain in what is one of the most bizarre and unpredictable presidential election years.