"So I raised my right arm, looked at the thousands and thousands of people that were breathlessly waiting, and started shouting, 'Fight! Fight! Fight!""
The image of Trump at last Saturday's rally, face bloodied, fist raised, with Secret Service agents and the Stars and Stripes completing the tableau, flashed up on giant TV screens. Delegates at the Republican national convention in Milwaukee responded as one.
"Fight! Fight! Fight!" they chanted, punching their own fists in the air. Trump had taken a bullet for them. Their fervour suggested they would be willing to take a bullet for him. A Maga army on the march. A frightening spectacle for American democracy.
In that moment it was clear that Trump's survival of an attempted assassination had turned him into a figure that transcends politics, an American messiah with swagger. His power over the crowd, summoning anger and sympathy and ecstasy with a flick of a switch, evoked dark chapters in Europe in the 20th century.
Like demagogues of the past, Trump understands spectacle. His instinctive response to a bullet shaving his ear, sparing his life by a quarter of an inch, was a masterpiece of self-mythology. At the convention on Thursday night, he delivered raw political entertainment.
Big screens showed Trump doing his awkward, fist-pumping dance to the sound of Village People's Y.M.C.A. To Democrats and much of the world, it is a preposterous sight. To the Trump faithful, it makes him human and lovable.
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