Responding to an Assassination Attempt
I’m reluctant to say much about yesterday’s attempt to kill Donald Trump. There’s too much that I don’t know, especially about the motivations of the shooter. And the shooting itself is in a much larger context of a political campaign.
I would say that such violence has no rightful place in our society, but I’m not willing to join with those who say that this is not who we are. To say that is to ignore too much violence, too many calls to violence. In so many ways, it is who we are. And it’s particularly important now to say that Trump himself is at the center of much of this. It seems ironic to me that so many people are saying that this is not who we are, even as they offer condolences to an almost-victim of violence who has made violence a centerpiece in his campaign. While I don’t agree with everything that David Frum says, I think that his column The Gunman and the Would-Be Dictator captures much of what I feel.
The despicable shooting at Trump, which also caused death and injury to others, now secures his undeserved position as a partner in the protective rituals of the democracy he despises. The appropriate expressions of dismay and condemnation from every prominent voice in American life have the additional effect of habituating Americans to Trump’s legitimacy. In the face of such an outrage, the familiar and proper practice is to stress unity, to proclaim that Americans have more things in common than that divide them. Those soothing words, true in the past, are less true now.
Nobody seems to have language to say: We abhor, reject, repudiate, and punish all political violence, even as we maintain that Trump remains himself a promoter of such violence, a subverter of American institutions, and the very opposite of everything decent and patriotic in American life.
And, yes, I know that President Biden told supporters in phone call last week that it’s time to put Trump “in the bulls-eye.” However much I disagree with many of Biden’s policies, I can’t believe that he was speaking literally or offering a dog-whistle to some operator. That’s a common metaphor – and surely Biden now regrets using it – but to see it as a call to violence requires ignoring so much that we know about Biden’s character and appreciation for American democracy.
Note – that’s a gift link to David Frum’s column, but it’s good only for 14 days. After that, the column disappears behind the paywall.