There are moments when events in the US generate a deep visceral response and prompt conspiratorial thoughts and deep questions.
The attempted Trump assassination is one. For instance, did you briefly think it was a pity the assassin had missed? Did you wonder if the whole thing was set up to make him a martyr?
Did you look at the Iwo Jima type photo of a bloody Trump fist raised with the flag in the background and think it was fake? Did you feel sick as you realised the image would probably carry him back into the White House?
The acceptable answer is, of course, that you didn’t. But at the same time, you couldn’t help a tiny voice in the back of your brain pricking away with the questions.
But it is not just conspiracy fantasies that mark our thinking about US events (although we shouldn’t forget that there have been many conspiracies there) it is also the emotional impact of your encounters with US history, events and that little question – what if?- that crops up when you travel around the country.
Your own prejudices and memories also play a part. Visitors to the Washington Museum of African American history are more likely to remember Chuck Berry’s big red Eldorado or the Emmett Till casket photos than films of Martin Luther King speaking.
If you go to the Washington Mall, you are moved by Maya Lin’s magnificent Vietnam Memorial Wall and the offerings left on the wall by grieving relatives. But you also walk past conspiracy theorists claiming there are still captured US soldiers imprisoned in Vietnam.
You also pass the awful statue Ronald Reagan insisted on placing near the Wall – ugly, out of place and offensive to the families who have transformed the Wall from a static memorial to a community commemoration.
If you are a history buff visiting the Ford Theatre to see the box in which Lincoln was shot a great historical what if crosses your mind. The Grants had been intended to attend as well but Mrs Lincoln loathed Mrs Grant (and vice versa) so they didn’t attend. If they had an armed soldier would have been standing outside – one who was a constant companion to the General at a time when Presidents didn’t enjoy blanket Secret Service protection.
What do you think about when you visit Arlington cemetery to see the Kennedy graves? Do you remember your hopeful youthful attitudes before we knew more about the Kennedys. If you are old enough you remember where you were when JFK was shot. If you are younger, you remember the conspiracy theories.
If you have been a tourist in the US, you may have visited the many old Spanish missions dotted across the West Coast and the southeast. If you visited the Alamo – one of them – you would have been surprised at how small it was and how it stood side by side with offices and shops. How did something so small become so big in history?
Do you wonder where the memorials to the vast areas wrenched from Mexico in the US-Mexican Wars are? Who remembers that General Grant’s alcoholism started after his participation in that war just as US soldiers in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan came back – addicted not so much to alcohol as other drugs.
If you were on the West Coast you might have visited a mission near Pasadena – the last campaign stop by RFK before heading off to Los Angelese where he was shot. If you were alert you would have seen the small cardboard notice mentioning that RFK had been there.
When you travel and meet American tourists there are also surprises which prompt a visceral response. In Laos, at a small hotel near the Plain of Jars, you might have dined with a young American couple who, when you mentioned the bomb damage to the Plain and to Hue they ask who bombed them? When you stare at them in amazement they suddenly say “Oh”.
Donald Trump was looking likely to win before the attempted assassination. It is now very probable. What will you and others feel after another four years – possibly eight – when the Supreme Court rules that non-consecutive terms don’t count?
What visceral response will you have then?