The Tik Tok video clip that’s gone viral on social media features six Ugandan kids standing on a wall as though it’s a stage. The small one up front is standing behind three stacked plastic milk crates. A pretend microphone made of a stick and a garbage bag rolled up into a ball is taped to the top. Those milk crates are his podium.  Two boys on both sides flank the group while holding toy rifles.

A group of six smaller Ugandan kids stand below facing the group on the wall. These kids are the pretend-audience. The actual soundtrack of Donald Trump’s speech in Butler, Pennsylvania plays as we hear the moment the attempted assassination happened.

The kids reenact every moment of this event. They fall to the floor. They crouch behind the podium while the sound of gunshots blaze.

Then the group on the wall clusters around the small boy playing the role of Trump. They imitate the Secret Service agents escorting Trump off stage, as the Trump actor punches his fist in the air three times and mouths the word, “Fight” in sync with Trump’s audio.

This is a Different Level

People may react differently to such a video less than a week since the shooting took place. This took me back instantly to a moment in my career where I learned the importance of something similar to this.

As a crisis communicator, I was working with a company involved on an environmental issue that had global implications. We were saying and doing all the right things. My client was highly effective at making its case to people in places like Washington, D.C., on Wall Street, and in newsrooms.

Our approach was fact-based, which in the court of public opinion is a lot like how lawyers make their case in an actual courtroom. Words and logic built on top of each other like a brick on top of a brick that forms a mosaic that makes sense to the people the company cared most about.

We thought we were winning on the issue.

Then one day the CEO came in with a single crayon drawing in his hand. He had gotten a letter from one child which depicted a boat with his company’s logo crudely drawn on the side. The men in the boat were killing wildlife. Keep in mind, this was not an orchestrated campaign where teachers told their classes to do this. No, this was just one child.

The CEO said, “We have to change everything. Once it gets to this level, you have to change.”

He was one of the most savvy executives I’ve ever worked with, and he was right. Immediately, the company and our team pivoted. We went from a defensive posture, showing how the company wasn’t the poor environmental citizen it was accused of being (it really wasn’t), but instead went on the attack. But its aim was not at its critics. Rather, it became the leading advocate for the very issue that was being used to attack the company. It set the narrative and it led the way in ways it really didn’t have to. And it came out on top.

No Words

I thought of this instantly when I saw those Ugandan kids in that video. The assassination attempt on former president Donald J. Trump has rapidly reached a level in the global culture that few things ever do.

The real-life drama, the exhibition of raw courage, the pure grit, and the defiance that Trump exhibited in that moment. The fact that we know he had no ability to have anticipated it makes it all that much more stunning and shocking at the most basic of human levels.

His response: the fist pump, the call to “Fight” three times, that unflinching look into the crowd with his head exposed to even more danger, above his security team. The blood on his face and on his right ear.

Even Trump’s worst critics deep down could not deny that this is a man of conviction and strength whom they have underestimated.

When Donald Trump responded as only he would, the action transcended borders, cultures, ages, and languages.  Even a group of kids who range in age from five to 10 in Uganda instantly understood what they witnessed on that video. Around the world, children and adults, America’s friends and foes saw the exact same thing. The power of something like this cannot be overstated.

Once you see signs that a thing has reached this level in the culture, things will change whether you like it or not. In this case, no amount of talking points, fake media narratives, lawfare, or political smear campaigns can erase the deep-seated impression Trump left throughout society in this one moment.

Does this guarantee him an election victory? No. As we’ve seen, the opposition has its way of doing well when the ballots are counted. But there is one thing no one can doubt at this point. Donald Trump has established himself as a once-in-a-generation global leader.  And that is what the majority of people around the world crave right now.

Tim O'Brien is a veteran corporate communications consultant and crisis communicator who operates O’Brien Communications in Pittsburgh.

Image: Trump White House