The Dangerous Smile of the Martyr – How Donald Trump Presented Himself to Children as a Survivor of an Assassination Attempt

In a country that long ago abandoned reason, there came a moment in April 2025 that felt as if it had been torn from the pages of a dystopian novel. While tulips bloomed and balloons floated over the traditional Easter celebration on the White House lawn, a festival of hope, innocence, and spring, something occurred that was bizarre even by Donald Trump’s standards.

With the smug expression of a man who has long ceased to recognize limits, the 45th and 47th President of the United States presented a trading card to a group of children. Not a bunny, not a cheerful cartoon, not a baseball player graced the glossy piece of cardboard. Instead: a photo of Trump himself, bloodied, taken immediately after the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024, when a bullet tore through his ear.

In the image, Trump is shown with his fist raised and his face streaked with blood. The card bears the slogan “Fight Fight Fight” - and is currently being sold on eBay for $24.95, sealed in protective plastic like a historical artifact from a derailed time.

The children looked at him- curious, perhaps frightened. Trump smiled. The martyr of his own myth had found his moment- on eye level with the innocence he had long since lost. It was no accident. It was no faux pas. It was staging. Calculation. The deliberate fusion of violence, self-aggrandizement, and childhood perception- a curriculum for authoritarian America’s next generation. The card is part of a limited-edition series called “Trump Hero Cards,” designed by the president himself in collaboration with a network of radical supporters. They depict him as a gladiator, a crusader, a survivor. A messiah with a gunshot wound. What would once have been deemed tasteless is now public policy: the triumph over taste itself. Trump is not merely the victim of an assassination attempt, he is its producer, director, and marketer. The wound becomes a sales pitch. The scar, a symbol of invincibility.

Imagine Franklin D. Roosevelt showing children war photos at the Easter celebration. Or Lyndon B. Johnson handing out trading cards with JFK’s bloodstained shirt. But Trump does not live in history- he lives in the show. His America is no longer real—it is a reality show, where even blood becomes currency. “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face- forever.” In 2025, that picture looks different: it is a trading card. Glossy, laminated, autographed—with the president’s bloody ear. The face of the future is that of a child, holding this card- unsure whether to laugh or to cry.