Attempts to murder the President of the United States date back to 1835, when an unemployed painter named Richard Lawrence tried to kill Andrew Jackson outside the Capitol. 

Lawrence didn’t kill Jackson – his gun misfired and he was wrestled to the ground.

Most presidential assassination attempts aren’t well-plotted efforts to effect regime change. The only really conspiratorial one was the slaying of Abraham Lincoln in 1865 – John Wilkes Booth and his gang sought to undo the South’s surrender in the Civil War by killing the president and other key members of his administration.

There are those who believe the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 was part of a grand plot to alter the American government. But no one has ever proven anything other than that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

Most attempts are made by troubled people. Some with frustrated visions of grandeur. Some down on their luck. Some thinking they’re on a mission from a divine force.

Which brings us to last Saturday night.

According to police, a California man walked into the Washington Hilton, where Donald Trump and much of the rest of his administration attended the White House Correspondents Association’s annual dinner. He allegedly fired shots – not directly at Trump, because he was not that close to him. 

The man – whose motive appears to be that he didn’t like Trump – was taken into custody and charged with attempting to assassinate the president. A Secret Service agent was shot in his bulletproof vest, but there were no other injuries reported.

Attempts on a president’s life are usually a unifying force in American politics. Just about all of the country wishes or prays for a speedy recovery if he’s shot. or expresses gratitude if he’s not.

That’s not exactly what’s happening this time.

There is a large segment of the population that believes the attempt was staged. That Trump and his minions needed a distraction from the other distractions – Iran, Venezuela, tariffs – from the still unreleased Epstein files.

Trump and his administration’s reaction to the incident didn’t help quell that sentiment. It staged a full-blown press briefing – Trump still in his tux – that ended up being a pitch for his $400 million ballroom where the East Wing of the White House used to be.

Earlier this week, Melania Trump came out of her cave to denounce talk show host Jimmy Kimmel for a joke he made two nights before the dinner. He was doing a mock roast of the kind that the correspondents’ dinner features when presidents weren’t as thin-skinned as Trump. The joke pointed out that Melania Trump had “the glow of an expectant widow.”

This was deemed “violent rhetoric” by the administration – the kind that encourages people to do what happened at the Hilton. The Trumps – husband and wife – both called for Kimmel’s firing, and then he sicced his tame FCC commissioner to review the licenses of ABC-owned TV stations that air the late-night show.

Also in the line of fire, so to speak, was former FBI director James Comey. He posted a picture last year of someone spelling out “86 47” in seashells on a beach. Anybody else would slough it off – most of us who hate Trump have said more incendiary things than that. 

But Trump has it so in for Comey for not doing his bidding that he got his acting attorney general – the original one, Pam Bondi, got 86’d – to trump up felony charges for an alleged threat against the president.

This is on the heels of the 2024 assassination attempt at a Butler, Pennsylvania, campaign rally. A Trump backer was killed and there was blood at the top of Trump’s right ear. But somehow – while the rest of us scar when we scrape our knee – there’s nothing on that ear that shows the damage a grazed bullet would do.

Trump is so enamored with the picture of him with a raised fist being carried off by Secret Service agents in Butler that it hangs in the White House. Not far from a picture of him with Vladimir Putin.

I don’t know if I believe that Trump and/or his people staged these incidents in an effort to generate support and sympathy. But, given Trump’s actions after the events, I do understand why there are people who do.

In 1933, fire burned the building that housed Germany’s parliament, the Reichstag. A Dutch Communist was charged with setting the fire, later confessing to the crime and saying he acted alone in an effort to draw attention to the evils of the Nazi party.

The Nazis used the arson as a pretense for demolishing civil liberties in Germany, arresting scores of Communists and other opponents. It was such a convenient vehicle for their totalitarian plans that, for decades, people have believed that the Nazis actually were the ones who set the fire.

Experts who’ve studied this now say – mostly – that the Dutch guy acted alone. But that hasn’t ended the idea that would-be dictators will do anything, even kill some of their own supporters, to advance their agenda.

If you’re offended by the idea that people think you plotted your own failed assassination attempt, you might try not cashing in on it. Especially in the first few minutes after it happens.

Appearances matter to the Trump White House. But they’re warped. They believe the MAGA faithful want to see strength from Trump – and they’ll overlook $4+-a-gallon gas, astronomical meat prices and unaffordable health care for the “fight, fight, fight” mentality of a nearly 80-year-old man.

They’re looking at the low approval ratings in the polls and realize time is passing quickly – not quickly enough for the rest of us. They have more damage to do to American democracy and our reputation around the world.

Did they stage the attempt at the correspondents’ dinner? I don’t think so. But it sure is convenient.