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Saturday, July 13, at a Butler, PA campaign rally, a young man fired his rifle multiple times toward former President Donald J. Trump, injuring him and another individual in the crowd and sadly killing a firefighter attempting to shield his family.
The shock to the American people has been palpable. There are reports of children in elementary grades struggling in the aftermath, dealing with trauma as they returned to school Monday morning.
For adults, it brought back memories of Mar 30. 1981, the last time a President was injured in an assassination attempt when President Ronald Reagan was shot at short range, rushed to a Washington, DC, hospital, and survived a bullet that had narrowly missed his heart.
As many have observed, including President Joe Biden, there is no place for political violence in the United States. This type of politics is something that occurs too frequently in other countries, so-called banana republics or authoritarian regimes that deal with political opposition leaders by eliminating them.
Politics has always been a “full contact sport” in America, involving plenty of vitriol and even duels in the past.
Yet in the current campaign, the general discourse of both the right and the left seems to have ratcheted to a level that’s not just rancorous but personal.
Persona is getting more attention than policy.
Admittedly, the stakes are high. The political parties’ policy perspectives are dramatically different, based upon, it would seem, fundamentally different worldviews, to the point one side believes the other’s political recommendations are dangerous, insidious, destructive, anti-American, and capable of ending American society as we know it. No wonder opponents are acting like they are at war.
Both major party candidates have called each other liars and losers, along with a list of other epithets.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly been described as “an existential threat to democracy,” and since about 2016, has been the focus of an attitude that the media labeled “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” TDS, an unceasing loathing laser-focused upon Mr. Trump that does not change no matter what he says or does.
Mr. Biden has been called sinister, a traitor, Crooked Joe, Sleepy Joe, Dementia Joe, Clown, and “Let’s go Brandon,” a euphemistic code for a vulgar sentiment.
Social media is a world beyond. Online, people from all walks of life are spouting venomous commentary, not simply urging monuments be torn down but calling for individuals to be assassinated, saying it is too bad the shooter missed, and leveling hate-fueled comments not just at the candidates but anyone who supports them. One social media post I read celebrated the death of the PA firefighter simply because he had attended a Trump rally.
What’s now called Mainstream Media plays a role, too. The days of Walter Cronkite ending his newscasts with “And that’s the way it is,” and we believed him, are long gone. Networks are now not so much about objectively presented news as about biased political interpretation. And virtually all the broadcast and online “news” sources have featured the infotainment available in the acrimony characterizing US politics, including what’s now being called statements about “political violence.”
We really do not know how influential candidates’ repeated, blistering, toxic messaging may be, or how influential ongoing media presentations highlighting bitter polarization may be among the mentally ill, the radicalized, the disenfranchised and angry, the insecure, or the nihilistic among us. Who’s to say that a corrosive message simply ignored by most of us might nevertheless take root in the vulnerable and forgotten among us? And as they say, it only takes one.
Both major party candidates and others are calling for rhetoric to be “dialed back.” I hope so, but what I think is more likely is that each party will try to “out-dial-back” the other party, then blame the opposition for not dialing back enough or sincerely. It is already happening.
Likely, most of us would agree that politics in a free and pluralistic society would be best experienced as debate, not blood sport. But if a microphone were put under our noses and we were asked how this could be accomplished, what would we say?
Most of the politicians I’ve heard say something like, “We need to tone down our rhetoric. Everyone should do this for the good of our democracy.” Well, I agree, but this is way easier said than done. I feel for the politicians because I think they are trying to find a political solution to a spiritual problem.
Political leaders rarely set the tone of a culture but are creatures of it. They are a sign of the times in that we get what we vote for. The issues are deeper.
In our current culture, someone who disagrees with you is not simply different or wrong but menacing and expendable. The same is true in politics. If a candidate represents policies that you find unacceptable, then he or she is unacceptable and should be removed “by any means necessary.”
Back to that microphone in front of us. What should we say and do?
As a Christian, I’d suggest the following:
It may not seem like much, and in an ocean of words in this information age, our efforts may seem like a drop in the bucket.
But, “For the kingship belongs to the Lord and He rules over the nations” (Ps. 22:28).
Dr. Rex Rogers
President, SAT-7 USA
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