‘POLITICS BECAME IRRELEVANT’

Trump Shooting Could Change America, Says Reagan’s Daughter

Patti Davis recalls how America came together and “politics became irrelevant” after her father’s shooting in 1981.

Ronald Reagan’s daughter has recalled how Americans put aside politics and came together as a nation after her father was shot in 1981. In an essay for The New York Times reacting to the failed assassination of Donald Trump at a campaign rally, Patti Davis described the excruciating wait for news after Reagan was shot on his way out of a hotel in Washington, D.C., and the shock that enveloped the nation and meant that politics “became irrelevant, at least for a while.” She added: “America is far more angry and far more violent now than it was in 1981. I don’t know if this event will soften any of that. I don’t know if the Trump family will have the same experience I did—that of a nation setting politics aside and simply responding in a human and humane way. I also don’t know how, or if, this experience will change Mr. Trump. My father believed that God spared him for a very specific reason, to end the Cold War with the Soviet Union, to try to reach some kind of agreement on nuclear weapons... That’s the other part of being reminded of your fragility as a human being: You are reminded that time is precious and it’s imperative to use its gift in the most meaningful way you can. But how any individual interprets that realization is impossible to predict.”