In the hours, days and weeks to come, America will surely hold its breath. The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump comes at a time when the country already felt bruised—if not broken—politically.
America is on a knife edge.
To all intents and purposes, America’s two tribes were already at war. But a shot had not been fired. Until now. (No, we don’t know the political motivations or the mental state of the would-be assassin, but attempting to kill a presidential candidate will do nothing to lower tensions.) Over the last few years the tenor of what passes for political debate and argument in the U.S. has plumbed new depths of ugliness and violence.
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And it’s not just words. The threat level to members of Congress is historically high. U.S. Capitol police reported that, from 2017 to 2021, they rose from 3,900 to 9,625 annually. Since the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, threats to lawmakers on both sides, judges, election officials and school board members have risen exponentially. Threats to judges have risen 400 percent over the last few years.
The violence of Jan. 6 was not a stand-alone moment. Threats to lawmakers and judges have risen exponentially in recent years.
Shannon Stapleton/ReutersAnd, alarmingly, Americans are now much more comfortable with the idea of political violence. A 2021 study by Johns Hopkins University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that 20 percent of Republicans and 13 percent of Democrats felt that violence was warranted in the current political climate.
They also revealed that 25 percent of Republicans and 17 percent of Democrats said threats to opposing party officials were acceptable. These are frightening numbers. Violence doesn’t just creep up: it explodes. Societies, once peaceful, can be torn apart overnight.
America is not on the brink of war, but it certainly feels like a tinderbox. Political leaders on all sides have a duty to douse the flames, not reach for the lighter fluid. The early signs are not good.
Although he was understandably angry, frightened and distressed, the sight of former President Trump looking directly into the crowd and shouting “fight, fight fight” as he was bundled off the stage after the shooting is not likely to reduce tensions.
An understandably angry, frightened, and distressed former President Trump shouting “fight, fight fight” as he was bundled off the stage after the shooting is not likely to reduce tensions.
Brendan McDermid/TrumpAnd, within hours, Trump’s possible vice-presidential pick, J.D. Vance, chose an incendiary post on X as his response.
“Today is not just some isolated incident. The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”
Elon Musk, X’s owner, promptly leaping to endorse Trump on X and demanding the resignation of the head of the Secret Service only added to the frenzy.
America, more than ever, needs reconciliation, not retribution.
But it’s not just the blowhards on the right. On X (where else?), idiots made trending topics of “How Did They Miss” and “They Missed.” Conservative comedian Tim Young noted, “Now HOW DO YOU MISS is trending because people are upset Trump wasn’t k*lled. This sums up the time we live in. Disgusting.”
And words matter. “There’s absolutely no question that speech convinces people to do things,” Susan Benesch, a human rights attorney and faculty associate of Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard told the Harvard Gazette last year.
“There’s very strong evidence of at least a correlation between dangerous speech and mass violence.”
It feels like an especially febrile time, not just domestically, but globally. There is a war in Europe, notionally between Ukraine and Russia, but proxies in Europe, China, the US, Iran, and North Korea are being drawn closer to the action. Tensions in the South China Sea are at an all-time high. Gaza is in flames and Israel may yet be drawn into a war on its northern border.
America is at a tipping point. Can those who presume to lead the country, and their fellow travelers, step back from the raucous, heightened rhetoric of political violence? We are about to find out.
On Aug. 28, 1963, one of America’s foremost public figures delivered an astonishing speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in DC, watched by 250,000 people.
In 1963, America heard an impassioned speech on the need for civility and peace. But five years later, he was the victim of the assassin’s bullet.
Bettmann/Getty“Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence.”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who spoke those words, was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.
