Why We Can’t Take Our Eyes Off Trump’s ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’ Photo
By Jordan Musser
At a time when masculinity is vilified, Trump’s display is striking.
By now you’ve almost certainly heard the news of the assassination attempt on former president Trump, and you’ve probably seen the remarkable image taken just moments before Secret Service agents escorted him from the stage. In the photo, his ear and face are streaked with vibrant red blood, the same shade as the bars on the American flag flapping against the blue sky behind him. Surrounded by Secret Service agents, at the last second, clearly shaken but still in control of his bearings, he halts the agents to raise a fist into the air as he yells, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” It is, and forever will be, one of the most iconic American images of our time.
We can’t take our eyes off of this photo. It’s plastered on every social media platform. It’s been commented on at length from the moment it first appeared. It’s both startling in its reality and goosebump-inducing in its symbolism. American politics turned into rhetoric, rhetoric into extremism, extremism into violence. The blood-splattered face, the understanding that our country missed catastrophe by mere millimeters. The whole photo screams red, white, and blue, almost literally. There’s something else about this photo, something we haven't seen in a long time: A bold, courageous display of the masculinity that the Left has vilified.
For years now, the Left has demonized, patronized, and maligned masculinity in an attempt to convince us that it’s toxic, dangerous, or simply no longer in style. Masculinity causes harm, they say - do away with it! Men are dangerous, and their displays of natural masculine tendencies are scary! What they fail to take into account is the man’s biological inclination towards strength, dominance, and power. We as human beings have known from the very beginning that these qualities make men the protectors, war fighters, and defenders. We send men into battle because, in the face of danger, their instinct is to fight. When the going gets tough and violence is on the table, why is it that we often look to a man to lead us to safety? Not out of disdain for women, but simply because we know man is programmed to protect.
The demasculinization of men in recent years has left our country without many heroes. There are few strong male leaders to look to for protection because they’re not allowed to exist. A large majority of the men in political power in America are limp, conniving, and spineless. A growing number of American men are soft, weak, and unchallenged in any meaningful capacity. They accept their demasculinization and then ask for more, because it allows them to continue to be unmotivated, fearful, and mediocre. It’s a sorry moment in history that we are desperate for a man in power to take the reins and wrangle this country back to morality and logic. Instead, we are given an elderly man with dementia who evokes stupendous pity from viewers on both sides of the political aisle by simply attempting to walk up or down a flight of stairs. We’re floundering as a nation. We’re weak, and weakening. The cracks in our facade are showing, hastened by the people screaming that strength and toughness aren’t qualities of the modern man any longer, allowing the moral core of this great nation to rupture and bleed out. And then Donald Trump was shot.
In the midst of an act of violence, humans typically react by fighting, fleeing, or freezing. It’s a rare individual who can keep their head and remain composed, and an even rarer person whose first instinct is to fight back. Trump took a bullet through his ear. And, as the deranged individual rained bullets down on the former president and the innocent crowd, Trump surely knew that the objective of those bullets was his flesh, his life. He was being assassinated.
The instinct of our physical bodies under attack is to shrink, get smaller, and hide. He ducked for cover, as agile in movement at 78 years old as any much younger man might hope to be, and was covered by his team of protection. He could have disappeared from the stage, enveloped by the cloak of their bodies. The former president did not disappear. Like a captain refusing to leave his sinking ship, he paused, and he rose. Ever a commander in chief, he shouted one final rallying cry to his people: “Fight!”
It was a remarkable demonstration of raw courage. It’s most startling not because of what it is: a man with bullet-ravaged flesh rising to demand that his people press on, but because of what it is not: defeat. How often do we see images like this splashed across our screens? Close to never. I see men in dresses and makeup, tapping into their feminine side, ambiguous in their attractions, or desperately longing to be women. I see men addicted to food and the couch, rejecting physical fitness and strength and coveting time spiraling into video games and virtual streaming. I see young, impressionable men trading in traditional relationships for screen addictions or casual encounters devoid of meaning or emotion. I see powerful, warped, squandered men kowtowing and capitulating to every moral degradation proposed in their communities and homes. Never a man standing up, fist in the air, refusing to back down from his convictions and truth. This is an image for our sons to see. This is an image to unite the nation. This is a hero. Say what you want about Trump - this is necessary and refreshing bad-assery, the kind our nation is obviously lapping up like a thirsty man in a desert.
I hope that Trump recovers quickly. I hope the people injured in the crowd, their families, and everyone who witnessed the terrifying event in real time can come to find piece after the heinous act. I hope this shooting creates unity rather than division. I also hope my son can see the photo, when he’s old enough to understand it. And I hope, when difficulty befalls him or he’s tested and challenged, he thinks about the falling bullets, the standing up, the fist in the air, the blood on the cheek, the call to “Fight!” He’ll be a better man, a stronger man, with that image in his mind.
Jordan Musser is a wife and mom living in Pennsylvania. She’s a former USAF Security Forces officer and now enjoys writing, lifting weights, and homeschooling her children.
