The Saturday Read Feature: The shot seen round the world
How Trump became a MAGA-martyr
Good afternoon. Welcome to the latest Saturday Read Feature — this is Nicholas. The usual newsletter will be with you on Saturday, but we wanted to get this piece to you ahead of time.
As that bloodied post-assassination photograph of Donald Trump started to circulate on Sunday, we asked the great Geoff Dyer to close read it for us. He produced a superb essay on how the image captures the carnage of American politics: the shot seen round the world.
The piece begins below. Click through to read it in full.
To frame the question somewhat awkwardly: when did the pictures of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump start to be taken? How far back do we have to reach to take the full measure of Joe Biden’s gaffes at the Nato summit?
In 1967 John Berger published an essay in which he pointed out the striking similarities between a photo of the recently displayed corpse of Che Guevara and Rembrandt’s 1632 painting, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp. After examining each image with his forensic eye for detail Berger moves on to the larger point that “both are concerned with making an example of the dead: one for the advancement of medicine, the other as a political warning”. Having published this short essay in October, Berger followed it up with a kind of sequel in December: “Prompted by another recent newspaper photograph, I continue to consider the death of ‘Che’ Guevara.” Five years later, in 1972, his knack for juxtaposing some of the most venerated paintings of the past with contemporary mass-produced images – nudes by Rubens with magazine covers from what quaintly used to be called the newsagents’ top shelf – attracted a wide audience with his massively influential BBC series Ways of Seeing.
What was once ground-breaking is now taken for granted. In a world of image saturation, everything looks like a quote from or version of something else. When the goalkeeper Mert Günok made a crucial save in Turkey’s match against Austria at the just-finished Euros, pundits made it seem as if he was actively and instinctively sampling Gordon Banks against Pelé in Mexico in 1970! And everything about the process of image generation – from transmission and dissemination to discussion and evaluation – has accelerated, to the extent that the slow gestation of Berger’s consideration has been reduced to minutes. (This piece, relatively speaking, is arriving as late in the race as a lapped 10,000-metre runner.)
Taken instants after the first shots were fired at Trump on 13 July, one photograph in particular, by Evan Vucci, has become instantly iconic: Trump surrounded by a triangular mountain of Secret Service personnel, forming a human shield. Behind him an American flag billows from a diagonal pole, but Trump’s clenched fist makes it seem as if the flag is flying from his hand, like a patriotic kite, all framed by a perfect blue sky. Everything about the picture works in Trump’s favour…
Have a good week, and catch you on Saturday for the main email. Thank you.
— Nicholas
That shot should not have been possible. Look at the Secret Service in action when Reagan was shot; they piled on top of him and hustled him away. This group was strictly amateur hour. They let him get up, exposing himself to another possible shot, so he could strike a disgusting PR pose? Incredible. Thanks for the gift to MAGA, guys. If it helps this sociopath win in November, this country will never be the same. He'll see to it.