Political Violence: It Is Who We Are And Who We've Always Been

Founded in violence, and suffering assassinations, domestic strife, and civil war, our country remains volatile.

Irony isn’t dead, and thank goodness, neither is Donald Trump. It is truly ironic that the biggest perpetrator of violent political rhetoric was the one who was shot at. In 2016, it was candidate Trump who suggested that “Second Amendment people” could act against Hilary Clinton.  

While so many of us abhor him as unfit for office, I know of no one who wishes the sniper’s bullet had found its mark. I lived through the assassinations of the 60s and the attempt on Ronald Reagan in the 80s. In addition to being immoral, that kind of violence threatens democracy: it’s a lone gunman imposing policy on the rest of us. It’s the most despicable kind of minority rule.

By the time this is published, we’ll know if candidate Trump has, as he suggests, rewritten his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention to “help bring the country together.” Let us hope it is true. Perhaps being grazed by an assassin’s bullet has served as some kind of conversion-of-kindness for our ex-president, who heretofore built a brand on the unkind remark.

Certain Republicans—without a shred of evidence— and led by his VP choice, Ohio senator, J.D. Vance in the moments that followed the shooting, couldn’t wait to politicize the violence, variously blaming President Biden, Democrats, and the straight media, for continuing to tell the truth about the ex-president: That his spoken desire to be a dictator “for a day,” and his ongoing public admiration for the most autocratic, antidemocratic world leaders like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Hungary’s Viktor Urban, are corrosive to our country.

Times change; rhetoric gets more heated. I note that in 2011 when Representative Gabby Giffords was shot, the blame went to the deranged young shooter. By the time we got to 2016, Donald Trump was bragging that he could shoot someone “in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose a vote.” (Weirdly, prophetically, true.)

On Steve Bannon’s podcast, the Heritage Foundation’s Kevin Roberts told the currently-incarcerated host, “[W]e are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

In a full blown recrimination of the truth-telling press, the usual suspects have said it was only a matter of time before someone tried to take Trump’s life based on the hated (but-accurate) reporting of his vile rhetoric, and spoken desire to “be [your] retribution.”

I suppose the mainstream media could ignore their right-wing colleagues and the political operatives who are hard at work in various states trying to restrict the right to vote, are casting doubt on the legitimacy of mail-in voting, and are preparing for more sophisticated stalling and legal challenges than they mounted after the 2020 election, if the next election doesn’t go their way, but that’s the opposite of what a free press does.

The MAGA-Media and aligned electeds sought to minimize the predictably wrote statements of condolence and warning against political violence from Presidents Biden, Clinton, Obama, and Bush, by calling them hollow and insincere— two things they know plenty about. “Thoughts and prayers,” anyone? In such a fraught and trying moment, you might have hoped they’d try to support the concept of nonviolence and civility, before pouring another glass of cynicism and downing it whole.

If you thought Trump was keen to play the victim card before, tighten your chin strap, because he’s going to double-down on it now, and for the first time, he truly is a victim.  

My fear is that after years of violent rhetoric from Republicans and the MAGA-Media, that they will, through deliberately inaccurate reporting and opining, make the process even more dangerous, as they blame Democrats and the media for the Trump shooting.

A good place to start is by stopping the “Both sides do it.” No. Both sides don't do it.

• Both sides don't train in small arms and C-4 explosives in "militia" compounds in Michigan, Montana and Idaho.

•  Both sides didn't bomb the Federal building in Oklahoma City, using the daycare center as ground zero.

•  Both sides don't march in the streets with torches chanting "Jews will not replace us."

•  Both sides didn't storm the Capitol, attacking police with poles flying American flags, incapacitating cops, and chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.”

• Both sides didn’t plan to kidnap and kill Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer.

I was particularly put off by Don Jr. mocking Paul Pelosi, after the Speaker’s elderly husband’s skull was bashed in by a Trump-supporting home-invader. This gem garnered Don Jr over 67,000 likes:

According to classmates, the shooter (who I will not name here), like the other young men who commit mass murder with easily obtained assault rifles, was bullied relentlessly. He’s not the first shooter whose actions followed bullying. That he was a registered Republican will be highlighted, but it is beside the point, which remains, take the violent rhetoric down, or risk more of this.

©2024 Jon Sinton