MAUREEN CALLAHAN: After surviving a week of history-making destruction that nearly tore us apart, America now faces a presidential plot twist that no one could have predicted

We did it. We survived what may have been the wildest week in American political history.

Days after narrowly surviving an assassination attempt, former President Trump made a triumphant return to the stage Thursday night by accepting his party’s nomination at the Republican Party Convention.

He stood upright in front of the iconic image of his bloodied face, his fist in the air.

Quite a contrast to the aging, wobbly Joe Biden, filmed the night before struggling to climb down the short back steps of Air Force One. The president, newly diagnosed with COVID and taking another break at his beach house, didn’t just look lost and confused.

He looked helpless.

Compare Biden’s physical and political stance to that of a proud Trump, who literally dodged a bullet and is shouting at his supporters: “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

That’s Trump’s best campaign ad, right there. Make it a split screen, a meme, an inescapable image.

Who represents American power and supremacy? Megadonors, party elders, and George Clooney all admit it: It’s not Joe Biden.

Days after narrowly surviving an assassination attempt, former President Trump made a triumphant return to the stage (above) on Thursday night by accepting his party’s nomination at the Republican Party Convention.

Compare Biden’s physical and political stance to a defiant Trump, who literally dodged a bullet and is shouting at his supporters, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” (Above) Biden steps off Air Force One upon arrival in Dover, Delaware on July 17, 2024

But Democrats are discovering that unseating him isn’t so easy.

Unfortunately, they’re stuck with the real Joe, a bitter old man with a perpetual chip on his shoulder, and an inglorious immediate family clinging with all their might to the curtains of the White House.

On Friday, Biden released a statement saying he was looking forward to “getting back on the campaign trail” [trail] next week’.

Who is the president who will never leave? Who is the real threat to democracy?

Trauma can be illuminating. Perhaps that’s why we saw a confident Trump before that electrified crowd on Thursday night, his right ear bandaged, opening his speech with “a message of confidence, strength and hope.”

It was a stark contrast to the “American carnage” Trump unleashed in his 2016 inauguration speech, a moment so dark that former President George W. Bush reportedly called it “weird shit.”

It’s certainly true that plenty of weird things happened on Thursday night:

Hulk Hogan, the living avatar of Trump’s inner professional wrestler, rips his shirt in half and screams, “Let the Trump mania run wild, brother!”

Old people trying to dance to a lip-synching Kid Rock. Fake white bandages on the ears in solidarity. Lots of “God” talk about a former godless billionaire.

Melania Trump enters the hall solo with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. The effect is bizarrely melodramatic.

And Dana White, president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, gave a speech that felt more like a primal scream than a political coronation.

Ultimately, Trump walked across the finish line with his name in the spotlight, like a late-night Elvis in Vegas.

Even the evening’s most solemn moment, the memorial for Corey Comperatore, who was shot dead at the Trump rally last Saturday, was not without its strangeness.

Comparators’ fire jackets and helmets were fitted to a mannequin at least a foot shorter than Trump. It all had the passing effect of dwarfing the hero, but no matter: When Trump leaned down to kiss the helmet, the audience was visibly moved.

Call it camp, call it high-level political theater, but it was an undeniably brilliant end to a week that could otherwise have torn America apart.

Even the evening’s most solemn moment, the memorial for Corey Comperatore, who was shot dead at the Trump rally last Saturday, was not without its strangeness.

Old people trying to dance to a lip-synching Kid Rock. Fake white bandages on the ears in solidarity. Lots of “God” talk about a former godless billionaire.

You sense that Trump knows and understands this: he showed no anger or bitterness over his near-assassination, but a rare humility and calm.

He called for unity and expressed his “gratitude to the American people for their overwhelming love and support.”

Except for those on the left of the band who found it funny: Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway, who made tasteless jokes on their podcast; or Jack Black’s Tenacious D bandmate Kyle Gass, whose onstage wish — “Don’t miss Trump next time” — resulted in their tour being canceled; or MSNBC’s Joy Reid, who still has her job despite stoking conspiracies that Trump wasn’t actually “hit by a bullet.”

So much for the moral righteousness that liberals like to claim.

As for the Democrats’ repeated claims that a second Trump presidency poses a grave threat to our democracy — well, The New York Times’ Ezra Klein just disabused us of that.

“Top Democrats,” Klein said Tuesday, have told him privately that if Trump wins, everything will be fine.

“I’ve heard top Democrats say to me… ‘I don’t know why all these Democrats who think Donald Trump is an existential threat to democracy are behaving the way they are.’ They’re more resigned […] “A greater chance of a Trump presidency than their public rhetoric suggests.”

Wow. So not only have Democratic voters been lied to about Biden’s health and fitness — many of their own leaders are admitting that this “impending dictatorship” stuff is just red meat for their base.

Meanwhile, nothing has united Republicans more than Saturday’s atrocity that left one dead and two seriously injured. Not the lawfare, not the attempts to bankrupt Trump — nothing.

And instead of using this support for self-aggrandizement, Trump seized his chance again.

Never before have we seen a vulnerable Donald Trump. On Thursday night, when he gave a stirring tick-tock about nearly losing his life, we saw that.

“I will tell you exactly what happened,” he said, “and you will never hear it from me again, because it is really too painful to tell.”

He talked about the beautiful weather that day, the palpable joy of the crowd, feeding off their energy until he felt a whooshing motion and realized he had been shot. He talked about luck, fate, God—whatever you want to call it.

“If I hadn’t moved my head at that very last moment,” Trump said, “the assassin’s bullet would have hit its target and I wouldn’t be here tonight… I shouldn’t be here at all.”

The crowd erupted in anger, chanting, “Yes, you are!”

Never before have we seen a vulnerable Donald Trump. On Thursday night, when he gave a stirring tick-tock about nearly losing his life, we saw that.

Contrast that genuine, spontaneous support with the fear within the party about Joe Biden, who has reportedly been told by everyone from Chuck Schumer to Nancy Pelosi to Barack Obama himself that it’s time to go, here’s the door. You don’t belong here anymore, Joe, leading this party or this ticket.

And yet – he keeps going!

The Republicans now have a real political martyr, someone whose character development has taken a very unexpected turn.

Trump has suppressed his worst impulses and made this shooting not about himself, but about his followers and, to borrow a cynical phrase from Joe Biden, about the soul of America.

The other party now has a legitimate debt, whose ego, vanity and delusions of grandeur are more important than duties to the party or the country.

What a plot twist. What a week. And we’re not at the end yet — only at the beginning of this thrilling, dangerous, and wildly unpredictable ride.