Nobody knows what the political impact of the Trump assassination attempt will be

I’ve seen a lot of people, some on the right but some not, assert that the shots fired at Trump are the effective end of the election, sometimes buttressed with historical factoids. The thing is, to the very limited extent that small-n history is of any value at all, it does not actually support the thesis:

TR was shot and lost. Ford was shot at twice and lost. Reagan's approval rating quickly fell back to where it was before Hinckley tried to kill him. There certainly are scenarios where this helps Trump—and anyway, he was already ahead—but history isn't exactly a blueprint here. https://t.co/q8qHBEXDE9— Jesse Walker (@notjessewalker) July 14, 2024

Was can also add in George Wallace here. I would also point out that even the short term boost in Reagan’s approval ratings happened in a context in which the Republican candidate had just carried California by more than 15 points, four years after the Democratic candidate swept the Deep South. Party alignments and loyalties were so different that 1981 might as well be 1781.

I will preface this by saying that I haven’t become Pollyanna. I think Biden is clearly losing, I don’t think the polls are skewed, and I think on balance the odds of beating Trump would increase if Biden were to step down to Harris, although it’s becoming clear that it’s not happening. But I will also note that the last time a candidate’s partisans and the consensus of the political press were this confident about a frontrunning candidate winning was 2016. You would think that both the 2016 primary and general election cycles would lead to a little more epistemological modesty, but that’s not how the game is played.