Political violence and especially electoral violence strike at the heart of the open, free and democratic choice-making upon which our civic democratic system and the legitimacy of its choices are based. We must condemn it in every instance as well as expressing our personal sympathy for its victims. We do so not to box check some vague concept of civility or comity but because it strikes at the taproot of civil peace. It is equally not a license to squelch political speech or in this case threaten or intimidate those calling attention to the real and profound dangers of Donald Trump returning to the White House. We are already seeing this attempt in the making.
Trump has already tried once to overthrow the republic in response to losing an election. He explicitly promises to wrench our democratic institutions into a perverted system of populist authoritarianism and wreck the structure of global alliances which have kept generations of Americans safe. We honor our democracy by continuing to participate in it peacefully and vigorously and not being cowed by those who try to leverage or exploit political violence for malign purposes. We have already seen numerous high profile Republicans — JD Vance, Gregg Abbott, et al. — collectively blaming all opponents of Donald Trump with yesterday afternoon’s assassination attempt. That is as unacceptable as it is unsurprising.
The anger of many Trump supporters is understandable and human. Biden supporters would feel similarly shocked, outraged, threatened if something similar happened to the President, regardless of the identity of the assailant. (The little we know now about the assailant is that he was a registered Republican and one of those dismal post-pubescent men who found meaning and power in an obsession with firearms.) These are human, real, entirely understandable responses from our fellow Americans. But the moment they pass into efforts to chill or silence temperate and accurate discussions of what a second Trump presidency portends we must reject them immediately, totally and categorically.
