Politics
From Teddy Roosevelt to Donald Trump, Something More Than a Shot To Kill a Moose
- Vicente Morín Aguado
Butler, Pennsylvania, at dusk this Saturday afternoon, July 13, Donald Trump is shot and wounded, minutes after beginning his speech to a crowd of supporters at an electoral meeting. The shots killed one person, seriously injured another, while the attacker was killed, thus avoiding worse consequences.
Milwaukee, October 14, 1912, presidential candidate Theodore Roosevelt is shot in the chest as he was on his way to the stage where thousands of supporters were waiting for him.
On that fateful day, just over a century ago, the leader of the celebrated Rough Riders, said:
"Folks, I'm going to ask you to be as quiet as you can. I don't know if you guys know I've been wounded, but it takes more than that to kill a moose."
Donald Trump, his face bloodied, raises his fist in the air, and shakes it several times before being forcibly removed from the podium. Once again, he was accompanied by that astonishing energy that has allowed him to advance during an ongoing judicial persecution, while mobilizing millions of supporters in rallies unprecedented in the electoral campaigns of the present century.
That image will be worth millions of words, equivalent to votes, from now until November 5, when the final act of the reality show that is this electoral contest will be consummated, where, as we have just seen, without a doubt, even life is at stake.
Formally, with greater or lesser sincerity, the condemnation of the facts is unanimous.
Teddy Roosevelt, shot by an anarchist fanatic who did not want him as president, refused to be assisted by doctors, delivering a speech immediately after the attack. He fell to the ground exhausted along with his last words. He survived 7 more years with lead as a witness in his body.
The president of the Big Stick went down in history, among many other feats and legacies, for being the only U.S. president with a medal of valor, awarded by the U.S. Congress, in memory of his courage in leading his men in a cavalry assault against the Spanish trenches during the battle of Loma de San Juan, Santiago de Cuba, fighting for freedom on July 1, 1898.
Like no other executive in the White House, during the Castro's 65 years of totalitarian communist dictatorship, the resident in Mar a Lago has stood with Cubans in the struggle for freedom. His commitment went so far as to sign Chapter III of the Helms Burton Act. Revolution Square breathed a sigh of relief when an appeaser named Joe Biden took up residence in Washington.
Freedom fighters will know how to choose.
Energy is a distinctive trait of leaders. Courage and determination accompany them.
The people of the United States will decide in free elections who will be their next president.