A nation traumatized and a campaign transformed as Trump is set to reemerge

CNN —

Donald Trump will reemerge after an attempted assassination as an even greater mythical hero of his MAGA movement with the Republican National Convention opening Monday after an extraordinary two weeks that have transformed the 2024 campaign.

More than 24 hours on, the horror of Saturday’s shooting is only beginning to distill into a shocking new national trauma. But both the former president and President Joe Biden are gaming out how to navigate the political aftershocks.

And there was another stunning development on Monday morning, when a district judge in Florida threw out special counsel Jack Smith’s case regarding Trump’s handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort. The shock move swept away one of the four criminal cases hanging over the ex-president in a huge victory for his campaign as the convention opens. It cements the notion that, apart from his hush money conviction in New York, he will not face legal accountability before November’s election.

The latest twist in Trump’s legal dramas came as the country was still processing the aftermath of Saturday’s horrific events.

An assassination attempt against a presidential candidate, with all the historical allusions it evokes, raises fears that bloodshed will beget more bloodshed as the toxic politics of the last decade threaten to take an even more ominous turn.

BUTLER, PENNSYLVANIA - JULY 13: Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is shown covered by U.S. Secret Service agents after an incident during a rally on July 13, 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

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“A former president was shot, an American citizen