The tone of political debate, and of public discourse in general, all over the world is concerning to say the least. The only question is when these emotions will reach a tipping point. In recent years, right-wing politicians have repeatedly become targets of assassination attempts: Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, former U.S. President Donald Trump, and now Czech opposition leader Andrej Babis.
In May 2024, no one would have believed that such an attack could happen in the heart of Europe. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was leaving a government meeting when a man fired five shots at him. Two bullets struck Fico, leaving him in critical condition, according to reports.
A gyanúsítottat még a helyszínen elfogták a Fico testőrei és a rendőrség munkatársai. Juraj Cintula nem éppen olyan volt, mint amit az ember egy elnök elleni merénylőről feltételezne. A 71 éves író és költő legálisan tartott fegyvert, a merényletet pedig már a választások óta tervezete. Cintula tagja volt több radikális szervezetnek is korábban, azonban politikai nézetei az idővel változtak.
The suspect was captured on the spot by Fico’s bodyguards and police officers. Juraj Cintula was not the type of person one might expect to attempt to kill a head of state. The 71-year-old writer and poet legally owned a firearm, and had reportedly been planning the assassination since the elections. Cintula had previously been a member of several radical groups, and though his political views shifted over time,
Cintula was consistently and strongly pro-Ukrainian.
Donald Trump’s Life Also Hung by a Thread
The attempt on Fico’s life caused shockwaves across Europe, but not long after, all eyes turned to America. On July 13, Donald Trump was holding a rally in Pennsylvania. As the then-presidential candidate addressed the crowd in the battleground state, shots rang out. Trump survived only because he turned his head at the last second, resulting in the bullet grazing his ear.
What happened was a direct consequence of the tense campaign, during which the Democratic Party portrayed Trump’s potential re-election as nothing short of an apocalypse.
Donald Trump has since been re-elected president, but the narrative that surrounded both Fico and Trump has not subsided. Left-wing campaigns around the world have repeatedly returned to the same themes: the cult of absolute truth and the notion of a “last chance.”
In both Fico’s and Trump’s cases, opponents sought to portray their election as the death of democracy itself. Supporters were urged to see themselves as guardians of absolute truth, with a duty to stand against their rivals — even if those rivals had been democratically chosen.
The persistence of this narrative was starkly illustrated by the riots that broke out after Trump’s election, when a minority group sought to topple the lawfully elected government in the name of defending democracy. The Democratic Party did little to cool the tensions — and in some cases fueled them further.
