Trump’s defiance of assassins shows why he’s so exceptional a history-maker

Andrew Jackson is the only president of the United States who got the better of his attempted assassin. 

The aged Jackson was at the Capitol for a congressional funeral in 1835 when a crazed man named Richard Lawrence aimed a pistol directly at his chest and pulled the trigger.

It misfired.

Jackson bull-charged his assailant with his cane, and incredibly, Lawrence pulled out another pistol.

It, too, misfired. 

As bystanders intervened, an enraged Jackson supposedly yelled, “Let me alone! Let me alone! I know where this came from.”

Lest we think we live in a uniquely inflamed, conspiratorial moment, Jackson’s Whig opponents had dubbed him King Andrew and John C. Calhoun reportedly called him “a Caesar who ought to have a Brutus.”

Jackson thought the Whigs had orchestrated the attack, and the Whigs thought he had staged it. 

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

President Donald Trump isn’t a former general or wizened old Indian fighter like Jackson, but he partakes of the same spirit of aggressive defiance. 

By all appearances, the two least fearful people in the ballroom of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner were an older gentleman from New York who kept eating his salad during the mayhem . . . and the target of the attack himself. 

Trump is one of the most indomitable figures in the history of our politics.

No matter how much he’s mocked or hated, no matter how intense the controversy or how impossible the fix, no matter how dramatic the situation, he never breaks or loses his sense of command.

The ever-ebullient Teddy Roosevelt, who once gave a speech from shot-through notes immediately after an assassination attempt, might tip his cap.

(TR takes the cake for badassery in the face of a threat to his life, given that he delivered that 1912 campaign speech while bleeding and with the bullet still lodged in his chest.)

A fundamental part of the Trump ethos is — as he said right after the dinner attack when everything was still confused — “Let the show go on.”

For him, the show must never stop, and he’s always at the center of it. 

It’s one reason he had the instinct to pump his fist in the air in Butler, Pa., after he’d been bloodied and nearly killed by an assassin’s bullet, demonstrating fight and lack of fear in an instantly iconic moment.

Anyone inclined to dismiss this trait as that of a mere entertainer should consider how showmanship has always had an outsized role in high-level politics.

Franklin D. Roosevelt referred to himself, in a positive way, as one of the top actors in the country. 

Trump’s belief that he’s always going to prevail and that if he doesn’t, he’ll find a workaround, gives him an invincible self-confidence.

It doesn’t mean that he won’t retreat if necessary, but whether he’s being firm or flexible, he’s equally upbeat and assured about his position. 

He couples this with a hyperactive energy.

Just look at Washington, DC.

Trump has deployed the National Guard to fight crime there, cleaned up homeless encampments and public parks, vowed to make the grass look greener and the water in the Reflecting Pool look bluer, hosted a military parade, brought the coming attractions of an IndyCar race and an enormous fair on the National Mall, started construction of a massive new White House ballroom, and stated his intention to build a 250-foot triumphal arch. 

His omnipresence, ambition and willingness to exercise power across two presidencies — spanning 12 years with the Biden interregnum — are going to make him one of the most dominant figures in American political history, up there with the likes of Reagan, FDR and TR in the modern era. 

None of this means that he’s right or wrong on any given question, and of course these characteristics all come with downsides, sometimes considerable ones.

But no one can question Trump’s resilience — or his preternatural ability to proceed unbowed no matter what the circumstance. 

X: @RichLowry