India woke up to a startling news on July 13, 2024. The defining image of former President Trump pumping his clenched fist in the air and mouthing, “fight, fight” is going to stay in people’s memory longer than expected. Trump’s gesture of defiance, moments after a bullet grazed past his outer ear will dominate the poll season. The incident, a failed assassination bid occurred during Trump’s campaigning trail at Burns in Pennsylvania for the 2024 US presidential elections.

While the motive of the assassination is yet to be ascertained, the shooter was gunned down by the Secret Services. But the scale of collateral damage in terms of the messaging is humongous. Perhaps, the outcome of the Presidential elections can be a perfect metric to assess the impact of the incident for the United States as such.

The assassination bid has set the cat among the pigeons. Political analysts and experts argued that this can’t be an isolated event given the surge in the rise of fatal attacks against conservative leaders across the World. Shinzo Abe was assassinated from close range during an election campaign in 2022. In May 2024, Populist leader and Prime Minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico was shot fatally five times. Thankfully, Fico survived and resumed his official duties just two days ago. All these leaders have something in common. They represented the popular voices that are derided as being nationalist, exclusive and discriminatory by the politically elite left-liberals (Le-Li). The populist forces, voicing societal apprehensions have been scathingly labelled as neo-nationalists and social conservatism are accused of breeding hostility, xenophobia and racism.

Towards the turn of the first decade of the 21st century- a massive change in the societal framework arising from widening inequalities both political and economic, identity crisis, cultural shocks drove up support for conservative forces. Echoing this trend of the contemporaneous rise of populism, a new political dispensation with an absolute majority was voted to power after three decades in 2014 in India. A similar trend was witnessed in the 2016 US Presidential Elections and the 2020 Brexit referendum.

But the defiant Le-Li brigade recalcitrant to the surging people’s drift towards conservative forces began to deprecate people’s choices. They began to brand the meteoric rise of this populism as authoritarianism. Even the democratically elected populist leaders were disparaged and labelled as ‘fascists’. The political dispensations with a nationalistic outlook thus became the target for the left academicians. Painting a doomsday picture, narratives of ‘democracy in danger’ were propagated.

Since the inauguration of the nationalistic political dispensation at the helm, India has been at the receiving end of this narrative war. India’s brush with Le-Li propaganda openly manifested for the first time in US President Obama’s remarks in a Town Hall meeting. He rebuked the Indian administration for growing intolerance highlighting attacks on Churches. But these alleged attacks turned out to be cases of burglary. US patronising tone and motivated accusations were incongruous with the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data which showed a marked decline in riots and communal tensions since 20141.

The US President’s unfounded, unchallenged comments gave ammunition to the Le-Li brigade which began to perpetrate a propaganda of democratic backsliding in India. The West which never had major issues with Indian electoral democracy suddenly raised alarm that Indian democracy is in crisis. It began to insinuate the world commentariat on the democratic credentials of India. What ensued was India’s marked demotion in International Democracy Ratings and other indices compiled by Western Think-Tanks.

India was soon placed under the category of “electoral authoritarianism”. A similar decline was observed in India’s Freedom of Press rankings, the Happiness Index, and the Global Hunger Index. This downturn in the Global Hunger Index came at a time when the World Bank commended India for bringing 250 million people out of multi-dimensional poverty2.

This negative propaganda was carried out by the Western academicians, the Le-Li brigade in cahoots with compliant Western media to tarnish the so-called Right Wing or the Populist/ Conservative political dispensation in India. The Le-Li brigade carried out relentless disinformation campaigns in countries against the regimes of whom they disapproved including the Trump administration in the US. The Le-Li brigade effectively portrayed the anti-establishment candidate, President Trump as an existential threat to democracy. He has been infamously impeached twice. It is largely believed that President Jair Bolsanaro was the victim of the left elitist disinformation campaign. The template is now being extensively used in democratic countries with open societies.

Disinformation campaigns launched with the help of fake news channels and amplified by social media bots have in the recent past successfully created deep fissures in multi-party democracies stifling the customary democratic parliamentary debates. The relentless disinformation campaign by seeding distrust has created a trust deficiency and deepened the divide and polarisation. In a deeply polarised society with hardened positions, the chances of a middle-ground path are almost negligible. Reconciliation and forgiveness find no place in such a political arena. Polarised societies have become fertile grounds for inflammatory rhetoric and hate speeches. This hate is despicably normalised by the media and powerful lobbies castigating right-wing leaders as ‘fascists’.

Previously, the deep state conspired with the insurgent groups to trigger a regime change through colour revolutions in countries. But now, the Le-Li brigade with the active participation of media and civil societies has become adept at carrying out the new form of democratic coup. The US is now a victim of its own making. An attempted ‘democratic coup’ of different kind against the Republican Party Presidential candidate and the unbridled hate campaign that even justified any action against the so-called fascist has brought the country to a crossroads.

The assassination attempt is an outcome of a no holds barred sustained negative campaign that has deeply polarised society by spewing hate. This is mirrored in the media coverage of the internationally reputed US media that even refrained from mentioning the assassination bid against the Right-Wing candidate, Donald Trump.

CNN wrote, “Secret Services rushes Trump off the stage after he falls at the rally”. US Today reported, “Trump removed from the stage by Secret Services after loud noises startle the former President”. The Washington Post initially wrote, “Trump taken away after loud noises from the rally”. After political outrage, The Associated Press has ultimately recounted the terrifying incident as the “most serious attempt to assassinate a president or presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981”3.

Conforming to the Western media narrative peddling, NDTV reported “Trump rally shooter was a maths whiz at school, had won $500 prize” reminding Indians of “a poor school master’s son” epithet, extolling Burhan Wani, the leader of terrorist organisation Hizbul-Mujahideen.

Though the public domain is rife with speculations of an insider job, the attack raises serious questions about the abysmal failure of Secret Service agencies. The assassination attempt is a blot on the American democracy which boasts of liberty, freedom and peace. The violence and the Le-Li meltdown about the assassin missing the target have buried the last traces of political civility. This gunshot has further weakened the tenuous democratic fabric of the US which revels in being one of the oldest continuous democracies.

The prevailing political toxicity and hyper-polarisation have extinguished all hopes of a debate or discussion central to any thriving democracy. Why are democracies becoming so intolerant to differences of opinion or (rather diverse opinions)? Why are the saviours of DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) so elitist? What makes the Le-Li brigade the arbiters of public opinion to decide what is best for them? By demonising conservative leaders the Le-Li brigade and the media have shrunk the space for rapprochement and détente. While Trump has survived, the scars of democracy will stay on to remind the people of the lingering malaise of the politics of polarisation and hate.

The intolerance perpetrated by the media is driving people into violence. The assassin of PM Fico, a 71-year old poet confessed to his disagreement with Fico’s policy as his motivation for the attack. Ironically, while the assassination bid has exposed the worst kind of democratic vitriol including the weaponization of the judiciary to debar Trump, the usual suspects are steering the discussion away from this domestic malady to the perennial gun problem in the country.

The attack came at the most inopportune for the deep state beset with the increased pressure of withdrawing Biden from the contest with a plausible elevation of Kamla Harris as Democrat Presidential candidature. To add to its woes, the wobbly apple cart of Democrats is now faced with a daunting challenge from Trump, whose popularity has received a massive boost with the attack.

Agencies