The apparent assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump on Sunday was appalling but not surprising. It’s the second such event in a little over two months, and the responses to both tell us all we need to know about the current state of American politics.

As Trump was golfing at Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach in Florida Sunday afternoon, Secret Service agents saw a rifle poking out of a fence near the golf course and opened fire on Ryan Wesley Routh, it was reported. According to Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, Routh’s weapon was equipped with a long-range scope. He was just 400 to 500 yards from the former president.

Routh was charged Monday morning with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

“No ears were harmed. Carry on with your Sunday afternoon,” Rachel Vindman, the wife of Alexander Vindman, a former impeachment witness against Trump in 2019 posted on X. She walked back her response Monday, posting: “I have deleted my tweet. It was flippant & political violence is a serious issue. Whether it’s aimed at a former president, the media, immigrants, or political “enemies” & every incident should be addressed appropriately if we want to change the tenor of our political discourse.”

Angry backlash does much to prompt an X-post “rethink.”

Vindman’s tweet mirrors some of the reactions to the assassination attempt of Trump on July 13, when Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on the former president with an AR-15 rifle, striking his ear, killing one rallygoer and wounding two others.

Colo. state Rep. Steven Woodrow posted on X: “The last thing America needed was sympathy for the devil but here we are.”

As the New York Post reported, his post garnered nearly 2 million views before he deleted it, and eventually his entire account.

Woodrow wasn’t alone, and the size and necessity of the bandage on Trump’s ear was also fodder for partisan snark. Even Trump’s post-shooting response was the target of ire. As a bloodied Trump was being led off the stage in Butler, he paused and raised his fist, giving photographers an iconic shot of defiance. Multiple photographers expressed worries to Axios that the images could turn into a kind of “photoganda,” giving the Trump campaign free PR.

This is where we are in the final months before the November election, and it is clearly not an atmosphere in which security for a presidential candidate should be taken lightly. Trump has many detractors, and so far two of them were willing to air their grievances with a gun.

Sheriff Bradshaw noted: “At this level that he is at right now, he’s not the sitting president — if he was, we would have had this entire golf course surrounded.”

“It’s all the more reason why President Trump should be afforded the full-blown level of the sitting presidential package from the Secret Service,” said Rich Staropoli, a former special agent for U.S. Secret Service told the CBS Austin affiliate. “This is not going to stop. This is going to keep going on, and I think it’s going to get worse and worse.”

There cannot be a third attempt on Donald Trump’s life. If he does not get the extra coverage needed because he isn’t a sitting president, then he will be a sitting duck.

Editorial cartoon by Gary Varvel (Creators Syndicate)