Assassination attempt on Trump and opportunity for spin
After the assassination attempt on the former head of the White House and the Republican candidate in the presidential elections in the USA, Donald Trump, an avalanche started. News of the attack has since been accompanied by speculation, conspiracy theories, misinformation and numerous manipulations, while the shooting in Pennsylvania has been exploited for spin. For representatives of the authorities and the most influential media, it served not only as a basis for additional glorification, but also for victimisation of the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić. In the headlines, he became the next “target” on the list of “freedom-loving leaders” who “think differently”. Along with these manipulations, which are always conducive to building a cult of personality, there were headlines and official statements that once again pointed to the same enemy – the West, its “falsely liberal elites”, and the “deep state” that “wants chaos”. Besides these narratives, there was also room for scepticism about the official investigation reports. Social media users and media outlets speculated about multiple bullets, multiple attackers, and the “mystery of the final shot”.
Satanisation of freedom-loving leaders
On one of the front pages, the statement of the President of Serbia found its place –”The target are freedom-loving leaders around the world, and the reason for the attack on both Trump and Fico were hatred and satanisation in the public”. In the same spin, there were traces of the media and of the government representatives. The focus shifted from Trump to President Vučić, who was presented as another leader who, along with Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán and Slovak Prime Minister Fico, “advocates for peace” and “thinks differently”. In the headlines, Vučić was the one who “sticks out like a sore thumb”, whereby “eerie coincidences“ between the “threats and lies” about him and the former head of the White House were highlighted with questions such as “Trump survived the bullet, will Vučić avoid it?“ and “Is Vučić targeted because he advocates peace?”. We heard the same from government representatives, who also used the assassination attempt on Trump to deal with the opposition. The head of the parliamentary group of progressives, Milenko Jovanov, assessed that a common trait to the assassination attempts on Trump and Fico is “a brutal media preparation through a relentless campaign of dehumanisation, criminalisation, hatred, and lies”, while asserting that “literally the same kind of campaign is being carried out by Šolak’s media and opposition politicians against President Vučić and his family”. Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin said that “Vučić and all those who have the courage to fight for freedom should get ready”, while Parliament Speaker Ana Brnabić asked “the ‘elite’ in Serbia and their ‘independent’ media” to understand that there can be “genuine consequences of the hatred they promote every day”.
Deep state
The morning after the attempted assassination of Trump, Serbia awoke to predictions from the SNS MP Vladimir Đukanović. He wrote on the “X” social network that “the deep state needs chaos” and that “Obama and company” have an “ideal chance to assassinate” the current American president, Joseph Biden, in order to “accuse Trump”. “The deep state must not allow change and Trumps’ victory”, added Đukanović. In the following days, the media contemplated the “shocking findings of the media in America” that the same “deep state shot at Trump”, and they also reported the opinion of the leader of the Serbian Radical Party, Vojislav Šešelj, that Trump represents “an obstacle to various centres of power in the USA” which are “colloquially called deep state”. Everything is connected with the Russian President Vladimir Putin, so the headline “Bullet in Trump because of Putin! ‘Deep state’ does not want peace!” The explanation boiled down to the fact that “the deep state does not forgive billions”, that is, a reminder that Trump was “wounded after Viktor Orbán brought him from the Kremlin a plan to end the war in Ukraine, where the American military industry earns hundreds of billions of dollars”.
Phoney liberal elites
In the context of the attempted assassination of Trump, or rather “freedom-loving leaders” who are “targeted” just because they have “different” views, the highest state officials also mentioned “phoney liberal” and “globalist elites” as villains. While opposing those elites to “ freedom-loving leaders”, the Serbian president said: “The most aggressive ones are always those who accuse everyone else of aggression, and these are the so-called left-wing movements, various left-wing movements, falsely liberal, whatever you may call them”. And the Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin, commenting on the assassination attempt, stated that, in his opinion, “the outgoing globalist elite, this liberal elite” believed that “everything is allowed in the fight against those who think differently”. “Everything is allowed against those who believe that it is necessary to achieve peace in Ukraine”, specified Vulin, stressing that after Trump, in the “logical sequence among the major political figures in Europe” there are the Prime Minister of Hungary and the President of Serbia. SNS MP Vladimir Đukanović concluded on the “X” social network immediately after the assassination attempt that “everyone who is not on the line of the left-liberal establishment and the war lobby will get a bullet”. The Trump-establishment line is defined in the same framework also in the headline underpinning that “Trump frightens the establishment to the core”, and this is why the bigwigs of the ruling elite “decided to take him down”.
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Alongside the manipulative narratives were disinformation efforts, evident both in the media and across social networks. In a flurry of conspiracy theories surrounding the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, misleading claims have surfaced on Facebook that Trump was hit by two bullets, the second of which hit him in the chest. Doubts about the official version of events, according to which the main suspect in the attack is 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, were also launched by announcements that stated that the police department identified the shooter – Mark Violets, a well-known antifa extremist. The media additionally put a question mark on the official information from the investigation with headlines in which the FBI is potentially “hiding the truth” about other shooters in the Trump’s case. Referring to the portal Russia Today Balkan, Informer and Alo! conveyed the thesis that “three shooters shot at Trump”. In the text of RT Balkan, the starting point is the forensic analysis of audio recordings by experts from the National Centre for Media Forensics of the University of Colorado, which talks about shots from more than one weapon and the chances that there were multiple shooters.