Political Violence is Also a Threat to Democracy

A new week, a new Trump assassination attempt. Or, I should say, “alleged” assassination attempt since, as of this writing, we still don’t exactly know what was happening out in dem bushes. Thankfully, nobody appears to be injured.

Again, as of this writing, we don’t know a motive for why a 60-year-old dude was poking his AK-47 through a hole in the fence at Trump’s golf club, but safe to say, it was probably not for any good reason. Anybody as enamored with Vivek Ramaswamy as this dude appears to be probably doesn’t have all his screws fully tightened.  (It should go without saying that there’s also some indication that he was an antisemite, but, you know, I’m gonna say it anyway.)

Within moments of the incident, the online space was already lit up with the usual rogue’s gallery blaming Democrats and the rhetoric around their opposition to Trump. The most common complaint is that saying that Trump is a threat to democracy will, inevitably lead to political violence. I think it’s an interesting point because it reveals something about the way the two sides think.

“Me? Oh nothing. Just hanging out with my rifle and a bunch of bags at this golf course. Oh, the former president is playing today? I had no idea.”

First of all, it is entirely consistent to say that Trump is a threat to democracy while also being opposed to political violence. Why? Because political violence itself is a threat to democracy. The essential promise of democracy is that expressing one’s political voice in a peaceful manner obviates the need to do so with a rifle. Democracy is the solution to political violence.

That’s not how those howling about Democratic rhetoric see it. Instead, they hear “Trump is a threat to democracy,k” and they think that somehow equates to calling for political violence, not because any Democrat is calling for violence, but because they themselves are more inclined to think that such acts are sometimes justified.

While vast majorities of all Americans believe that political violence is never an appropriate response, more than twice as many Republicans as Democrats believe “Americans may have to resort to violence in order to get the country back on track.”  Twenty-eight percent of Republican respondents, as opposed to twelve percent on the Democratic side.

We see this played out time and again. While the 60’s and 70’s saw a massive spike in leftist political violence, it’s been mostly conservative violence since Timothy McVeigh’s Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. Why would this be? A 2022 NHI study speculated that:

“Because such characteristics have been found to increase in-group bias and lead to greater out-group hostility (10), violence for a cause may be more likely among proponents of right-wing ideologies. In contrast, in comparison to their right-wing counterparts, left-wing individuals score higher on openness to new experiences, cognitive complexity, and tolerance of uncertainty (5). They are also less likely to support social dominance (11), which could lead to their overall lower likelihood to use violence against adversaries. In line with this reasoning, some studies have demonstrated an empathy gap between liberal and conservative individuals (12). Finally, according to various conceptualizations and operationalizations of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA; 13–15), aggressive tendencies constitute an inherent component of this construct, with people high in RWA being more hostile toward others who violate norms than those low in RWA.”

Put more succinctly, there appears to be something about rightwing attitudes which lends itself more towards hostility to the “out group.” We’ve certainly seen that from the MAGA discourse. We saw it in George W. Bush’s blanket declaration to the world following September 11^th that “you’re either with us or you’re against us.” Or Reagan’s characterization of The Soviet Union as “The evil empire.” I’m not being judgy about their mindset, but black-and-white thinking is more prevalent among conservatives, and black-and-white thinking lends itself more readily to political violence. It is what it is.

Of course, the reason the calls to tone down the rhetoric about Trump being a threat to democracy aren’t entirely meant to lower the political temperature; we know this because we don’t see those same people calling for Trump to maybe not post things like, “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT” to his army of unstable acolytes despite the fact that Swift had to cancel a show this year due to a credible terroristic threat.

I’m not blind to my biases. If something were to happen to Harris or Walz, my instincts would almost certainly be to lay some of the blame at the feet of Donald Trump, regardless of the attacker’s stated motivations. So I do have sympathy for those on Trump’s side who regard any attack on their man as directed, at least in part, by those on left. The difference, obviously, is that Trump’s calls for political violence are long and extensively covered. Here’s a short summary of them from Axios in 2022; the list is considerably longer now.

The obvious concern now is that this second, thwarted attack will beget more violence. Even if it does not, I’m worried that the stage is now set for a difficult post-election moment if Trump loses. Trump has been crafting his martyr narrative even before losing in 2020. If he should lose again, particularly after these two attacks, I’m concerned about what he will say or do. The fear, of course, is that he could end up unleashing something worse than January 6^th.

Trump and Harris should use the moment to speak against political violence and to put out some sort of unity statement about confining our disagreements to ballots instead of bullets. Harris and Walz have already done so, but I have yet to see a statement from Trump or Vance saying the same. Donald Trump Jr. is out there this morning falsely blaming “radical leftists” for the two attacks, so it's unlikely we will see any calls for unity from that side of the ticket.

Although DT Jr’s first point is a lie, I firmly agree with his second. Nobody should have to go through this, which is why I am hopeful that he will join me in calling for gun reform.

With luck, we’ll get through the rest of the election without any more of this stupidity. With luck, we’ll have a smooth transfer of power, regardless of who wins. With luck, the streets will be peaceful in November. It’s hard, though, to ignore the sense of America cracking up. Trump isn’t the reason for this crack-up, only it’s most obvious proponent. The fact that he should now twice be the recipient of his own calls for violence is an irony I hope isn’t lost on him, but this is not a man not exactly known for nuanced thinking. Let me be completely clear: I don’t want to see Donald Trump hurt. In fact, I think the safest thing to do would be for him to drop out and go live someplace safe. Preferably with thick walls and bars on the doors.