Long before alleged gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks took shots at former President Donald J. Trump, I was slated to begin a series of articles on “Decision 2024” today. Since the Republican National Convention is going ahead as planned, and Trump will be officially crowned the GOP’s nominee later this week, I too am going ahead as planned.
However, I’d first like to address yesterday’s tragic events in Butler, Pennsylvania, which I watched as they unfolded on television. Trump was within an inch of getting his head blown off. A 50-year old firefighter and father of two was killed, two others were critically injured, and the trauma faced by those in attendance won’t soon be forgotten.
And yet, while some folks on both sides of the aisle are telling us to “Turn the rhetoric down!”, each side continues to project Armageddon should the other side win the election. As the investigation into this assassination attempt proceeds, we will, no doubt, be told that there is a cover-up as they try to pin the deed on a ‘lone nut’ when a conspiracy is clearly afoot! And I’ve already heard conspiracy theories from those on both the right and the left.
On the right, I’ve heard this QAnon narrative: “Biden and the left-wing media are in cahoots! They should stop calling Trump a fascist! They’ve created a toxic political environment! Biden is a threat to democracy and the American way of life! He’s weaponized the judiciary against Trump! They can’t get Trump on impeachment or in the courts, so now they’re trying to take him out! You expect the FBI to uncover the facts? The FBI!? Why didn’t the Secret Service put agents on all the rooftops? This was clearly a Deep State setup!”
On the left, you’ll get a BlueAnon mirror image: “Trump and his MAGA base are the ones who created this toxic political environment! They are the ones calling Biden a radical leftist and woke socialist. It’s Trump who is a threat to democracy and the American way of life! Of course, it was a setup! Trump was more interested in putting his shoes back on so he could stand up and raise his fist for a campaign photo op, even though people were killed and injured! And it was a registered Republican who carried out the deed! You think it’s a coincidence this happened right before the Republican convention? Come on!”
In this environment, I suspect that no investigation into the actual evidence will please those who have a rigid point of view.
I’m kind of old fashioned. I live by the mantra, “Ballots, Not Bullets.” I don’t believe that an assassination attempt on a prospective occupant of the White House is the way to resolve our political differences.
Yes, that mantra has a context. Even one of the greatest of America’s founders, Thomas Jefferson, famously declared in 1787: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” And in hindsight, few of us would object to having taken out a Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, or Mao before they embarked on the path of mass murder.
Still, I don’t care what your views are of Trump or Biden. We’re not there yet, folks. And if you think that political assassination can simplify things, you’ve not thought through the unimaginable unintended consequences that might result. (And I’m writing this on Bastille Day … so beware the side effects of violence.) Granted, voting for either one of these guys might still have unimaginable unintended consequences. But if your side can’t win an election, this isn’t just about the strengths or weaknesses of Trump or Biden.
It’s about a political system that can’t generate viable alternatives and a political culture that is rotting to the core.
I’m not saying It Can’t Happen Here. I realize that this country has had enormous resilience through constitutional crises, a Civil War, a Great Depression, two World Wars, a Cold War (that encompassed several hot wars), political assassinations, and massive social unrest. Having been born in 1960, my first exposure to politics was the JFK assassination on November 22, 1963. By the time I was 14, my real-time education took place in front of a black-and-white television, where I absorbed news about the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy; the nightly reports from Vietnam, as 58,000 Americans and untold numbers of Asians were killed; the antiwar protests and the Kent State massacre; the demonstrations and riots throughout America’s cities in the fight for Civil Rights; and the corruption that spread into the highest office of the land, bringing down a presidency.
But past resilience is no guarantee of future success. Political violence is as much a part of the fabric of American life as is the voting booth. And in many cases, the voting booth is merely a means of assuring political violence on a systemic scale. Tomorrow and the day after, I’ll address not only the voting booth—but the larger culture that has brought us to this point.
Notablog 