Former US President Donald Trump suffered an ear injury in an alleged assassination attempt by a gunman at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, a shocking incident that will raise fears of instability ahead of the 2024 US presidential election. Several politicians, tech leaders and followers of Mr Trump condemned the attack, stressing that political violence is intolerable. Meanwhile, terms such as ‘Civil War 2’ and ‘American Civil War’ are rising sharply on Google search, according to a report. New York Post.
According to Google Analytics, the search term ‘American Civil War’ reached a 12-month high on the day Mr Trump was shot during a rally in Butler. Additionally, the term ‘Secret Service’ also saw the largest increase in interest in the past five years. The day following the incident saw new 12-month highs for the terms ‘long-distance shooting’ and ‘gun shop near me’, both of which saw significant interest increases. At the same time, ‘how do I move to Canada’ also reached a 12-month high.
Google Analytics tracks the total amount of interest in a term rather than each individual use—the term with the most searches during a specific time period (100 points) is at the top of the list, while the term with the fewest searches (0 points) is at the bottom. Within moments of the event, ‘civil war’ quickly became the most searched phrase on the platform.
Meanwhile, the 78-year-old Republican presidential contender, whose team claimed he was “fine”, was attacked as he began his speech. “I knew immediately that something was wrong, because I heard a loud noise, a gunshot, and immediately felt the bullet go through the skin,” Mr Trump said on his Truth social account.
“There was a lot of bleeding, then I realised what was happening,” he said. Earlier in the statement, he had said, “I had been hit by a bullet which grazed the upper part of my right ear.”
Meanwhile, the FBI has identified the shooter involved in the attempted assassination of the former president as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. The US Secret Service said in a statement that the shooter “fired multiple shots toward the stage from an elevated position outside the rally” before he was “neutralized” by agents. According to state voter records, he was registered as a Republican.
