Quick Take

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi everybody. Ian Bremmer here and responding to what is certainly a very dramatic turn of events in my country, the United States, with former President Trump at a rally appearing to have been shot, an apparent assassination attempt, and he's okay, but certainly didn't have to go that way. It looks like he was at least hurt, a minor injury, grazed, blood on his ear, got back up when the shots stopped, and again, appears to be fine. But that cannot be said for the state of American democracy.

This is a very grave turn of events in a country that is very deeply polarized, in a country where a great many Americans do not believe that their democracy is healthy or particularly functional, and where a large majority of Americans believe that the domestic political opposition is out to destroy that democracy. This is the worst sort of event that can happen in that environment, and I deeply worry that it presages much more political violence and social instability to come. This is the kind of thing that we have seen historically in lots of countries facing instability. It frequently does not end well. And the US, of course, is far more powerful; its institutions are resilient, but they have been under stress and eroding an attack for decades now.