In the days since a failed assassination attempt against presidential candidate Donald Trump, there’s been a lot of talk about political violence.
Politicians, pundits, journalists and regular citizens have decried the vile act, as we all should. We may never fully understand the motivations of the 20-year-old man who decided to climb to the top of a building in Pennsylvania on July 13 and take a shot at the Republican nominee. But we should all acknowledge that we are living in a climate in this country in which political violence is unsurprising, maybe even foreseeable.
Yet, calls for unity seem disingenuous when, in the very next breath, before the facts are in, our political leaders cast blame on “the other side” for creating a certain atmosphere. We say political violence is un-American, but it barely registers with some of us when there are verbal threats against our perceived political enemies. We shrug off divisive rhetoric and the demonization of political opponents.
Just last month during the presidential debate, President Joe Biden described Trump as a loser and a sucker, with “the morals of an alley cat.” Trump accused Biden of being corrupt, weak and a laughingstock. Now that Biden has decided at the eleventh hour to step down and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris as his replacement, the vitriol isn’t likely to lessen.
Insults have become part of the game among politicians who hold different ideologies. And that has set the standard for us to do the same. But some of us take it to another level. Those insults can make way for threats. And sometimes those threats become reality.
As with many things, I imagine political violence can mean different things to different people. But, however we define it, we can’t pretend we aren’t steeped in it.
As a country, we’ve been here before. Political violence is very much what America is about, argues Robert Dallek, a presidential historian, and Matthew Dallek, a professor at George Washington University’s College of Professional Studies.
The two are working on a book about presidential assassination attempts and political violence in the 20th century. And, in a recent essay for The New York Times, they say data indicates the United States is the most politically violent of all major industrialized democracies. “When it comes to assassination attempts on heads of government, the United States is the leader of the pack,” the authors wrote.
Of course, assassinations — and attempts — aren’t the only form of political violence. There have been physical confrontations between factions during protests over abortion, transgender rights and police killings. Neighbor has turned against neighbor.
Over the last six decades, the country has seen political violence increase in the late 1960s and early 1970s, level off in the 1980s, and spike a few times in the 1990s, according to a 2023 report from Reuters.
In the past, political violence was mostly characterized as the work of a few radicals. Today, it seems, radical views have flooded into the mainstream. And, as a society, we seem less outraged by threats of violence, even violent acts — if it’s happening to “the other side.”
We hear about many of these incidents through headlines — the recent assassination attempt on Trump; the 2022 attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; the 2020 plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Just last month, a California man was sentenced to prison for threatening to kill President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Those weren’t his only targets. He also was accused of plotting to kill or kidnap Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Mitt Romney, among others.
Threats are on the rise even on the local level. Many of us were outraged when, on Jan. 6, 2021, a mob stormed the nation’s Capitol. But, on the same day, a less-talked-about mob gathered at the home of Ruby Freeman, a former Georgia election worker. Mob leaders falsely accused Freeman of helping to steal the unstolen 2020 election. She wasn’t injured, but she must have felt in danger.
I was outraged when Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, received death threats for certifying an election that he knew was fair, because he had the data to prove it was fair.
I was outraged again when Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis felt she had no choice but to leave her home in order to escape threats from people who objected to her election interference case against Trump.
Then there are all of the lesser known instances of political violence or threats that are no less worthy of our outrage, such as the 2022 death of Anthony King, an Ohio man who was killed by his neighbor, because the neighbor believed King was a Democrat. King was a registered Republican.
Given the political temperature, some of us have become inured to what’s happening around us. Just as we should be outraged by an assassination attempt on a presidential candidate, we need to get angry every time someone’s life is threatened or taken by a person claiming to be righting the political landscape with violence.
If you condemn political violence, you must condemn it in all forms, at all times and for all people. You can’t just shrug it off when it is convenient to do so, and you can’t let your friends just shrug it off either.
When we fail to recognize all the ways in which we have been and continue to be a country steeped in political violence, or the threat of it, it creates an atmosphere of tolerance that feels increasingly more reckless and dangerous.
We already know politicians can’t or won’t lead us out of this mess.
It’s up to us to decide enough is enough.
Read more on the Real Life blog (ajc.com/opinion/real-life-blog/), find Nedra on Facebook (facebook.com/AJCRealLifeColumn) and Twitter (@nrhoneajc) or email her at nedra.rhone@ajc.com.
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