“Here we go again,” was my first reaction. A series of assassinations and assassination attempts on presidents and others flashed through my mind. From the assassination of John F. Kennedy to the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan.

And my second reaction was, thank God that Donald Trump was not killed – for his sake, for America’s sake, and beyond.

These were my first spontaneous reactions after the tragic, almost surreal news of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, the killing of one of his supporters, and the serious injury of two others who attended his speech in Pennsylvania last Saturday night.

Why and how this tragic event happened are questions that will occupy us for a long time, if not years. Already the Secret Service, the agency tasked with protecting the president and other high officials, is under tremendous pressure and criticism.

‘Trump Shooting Is Secret Service’s Most Stunning Failure in Decades’ read an unusually large headline on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

And already conspiracy theories are proliferating. Books and works with various conspiracy theories will follow, creating an entire industry.

Think for a moment how lucky we were! Had the bullet deviated slightly from its path, it wouldn’t have hit Trump’s ear, but his head. And then, who knows what would have happened to the country?

Regardless of whether one supports Trump or not, this cannot be disputed: The man is a leader. While blood was flowing from his ear, his face, and while Secret Service agents were trying to evacuate him, he raised his fist and shouted three times: “Fight, fight, fight.”

It is an image that will go down in history. An image that shows a rare determination to achieve his goal, to win the election, even at the risk of his life.

Patti Davis, Ronald Reagan’s daughter, described her own experience when her father was shot in March 1981 in an article in the New York Times.

Her father, she writes, saw the second chance he was given as God’s will to reach an agreement with Gorbachev on nuclear arms control, which he did.

We do not know if and how and for how long this near-assassination will change Trump.

What is certain is that it is time for all sides, in America and Europe, to tone down the rhetoric. “There is,” as I wrote in my commentary last weekend, “a lot of anger, hatred, and insecurity in the world today.”

There should be no doubt that hatred and toxic rhetoric leave their marks, change our lives, our principles, and values, and lead us step by step towards the abyss.

We therefore express the hope that this heinous event will shake, rationalize, and lead to a calmer political life, and to elections that strengthen the democratic system – rather than shooting and wounding it.