'Quasi-religious figure': Republican faithful celebrate Trump's return
CBC
In the euphoric early hours of this week's Republican convention, one delegate suggested chiselling Donald Trump's likeness into America's ultimate secular shrine: Mount Rushmore.
Others looked beyond the secular.
To some participants in Milwaukee, Wisc., this convention has transcended the realm of earthly political gathering, into something imbued with religious significance.
It was their elated reaction to a split-second twist of fate over the weekend: an assassin's bullet barely missing the former U.S. president's skull, tearing across his ear, just two days before the convention started Monday.
So Trump stepped into a bath of adulation from thousands of party faithful, making his first public appearance since the shooting, arriving with a bandage over his right ear. Country singer Lee Greenwood sang God Bless the U.S.A., as Trump took his seat in the boisterous arena beside his just-named running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance.
"Fight! Fight! Fight!" attendees chanted, echoing the words Trump had uttered in the moment Secret Service agents whisked him away, streaks of blood across his face.
The convention was abuzz with talk of miracles. From the stage to the hallways, attendees spoke of Trump's survival as the product of a divine plan for America.
"There is so much more energy [here] now," said Zina Hackworth, an attendee from the St. Louis area.
"We actually see the hand of God has protected former president Trump."
One Republican had just left church, and drove around the convention site with a decidedly less holy message hoisted on a flag on his red truck: "F--k Biden."
"I believe that God wants Trump to bring the United States back to where it's supposed to be," said Craig Basile, a 62-year-old Wisconsin man, after Sunday mass.
Trump has also described his survival as miraculous.
In his first interview after the shooting, he told the Washington Examiner he turned just the right amount, at just the right time, and credited it as incredible luck or an act of God: "I'm supposed to be dead. I'm not supposed to be here," he said.
He insists it will change him.