John Jefferson
I was going to write a different article about electoral politics, but after the second attempt on Donald Trump’s life Sunday, I figured I would pen some personal thoughts on the state of our country and the stakes of our moment. Poll numbers seem to have little bearing in an era where bullets are replacing ballots.
The United States has faced political violence before. Abraham Lincoln was slain by Booth, Jack Kennedy by Oswald. There is a historic, unrestrained impulse toward violence that rears itself in our body politic from time to time. That said, I will go out on a limb and say the two attempts on Trump’s life have not only been unprecedented in their brazenness but in the reception and subsequent dissemination on social media.
Sunday’s was the second attempt to murder the one-time democratically elected leader of the nation and the current leader of one of the two major political parties in the United States. It’s worth restating because, amid NFL football and the general relaxation of a Sunday morning, the public response to the shooting was muted. After the televised, dramatic assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, the West Palm Beach plot was met with resignation and dismissal. The idea that Donald Trump is staging attempts on his own life, for example, has become a stream view of the American left. Desensitization to nakedly political violence, and by extension tolerance for it, is threatening to become a norm.
How does a nation unravel such a mess? For starters, political leaders in both parties have an obligation to tone down their accusations. The popularly known “baby Hitler dilemma” has come to dominate a vast swath of the Democratic electoral base. The moral dilemma asks whether one would consider murdering an infant Adolph Hitler to prevent the Second World War and Holocaust; the affirmative answer has come to mark the American left’s response to the Trump phenomenon. In a country that once roundly condemned Hank Williams Jr. for invoking Hitler in his discussions of President Barack Obama, painting the 45th president as a Nazi has become vogue for the most influential celebrities, media outlets, and journalists.
If you call someone an existential threat to democracy enough times, vigilantism is a natural result. The Hitlerian rhetoric of those who have engaged in it has not only been irresponsible, but has evolved into a form of modern-day blood libel. American statesmen, if any re, must cut through the social media-infused insanity of our times and re-orient our national discourse to foster a sustainable consensus.
Second, meaningful steps should be taken to address the self-evident mental health crisis of our times. There are multitudes of theories about the key drivers of the crisis, ranging from the digital revolution to pharmaceutical drugs and nutritional practices. Regardless of its root cause, the National Alliance on Mental Health estimates that 23 percent of Americans are suffering from mental health conditions. In states like Texas, my home, many of these illnesses are left untreated due to cost and accessibility. This is no longer an acceptable status quo and will require the mobilization of local, state, and federal governments to properly combat. I am not a medical professional and can provide no concrete solutions to address this crisis, but even simpletons such as myself can identify the critical need for some degree of intervention.
The Democratic Party will, as usual, point to gun control measures and social media restrictions as effective means of preventing further violence. I would gently suggest that given the immediacy of the crisis, constitutionally uncontroversial measures to address rhetoric and health are required to stabilize the body politic in the immediate term. There is no time to waste with partisan rhetoric. With global pressure mounting in the Middle East, Europe, and the South China Sea, the United States can ill-afford the catastrophic consequences and loss of prestige associated with wanton political violence. In other words, let’s make a collective effort to address what we can pragmatically control in the coming weeks and months.
Finally, Americans must retain their general sense of outrage as incidents like this become increasingly frequent. It’s heartening to see Democratic leaders like Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) step up to hold the now-discredited Secret Service accountable, but his sense of urgency has not been reflected by the public or media institutions. Americans cannot count on fundamentally diminished political and media elites to defend basic democratic norms, so they must tain consistent pressure on their leaders to meaningfully investigate and proactively prevent further incidents. This includes placing direct pressure on congressmen and agencies responsible for security-related oversight.
Above all, Americans cannot afford to relent in their intolerance for plots, corruption, and violence. As so many old and famous states can attest, once a people accepts violence as a means of politics, republican values are extinguished. The totalizing, anti-conservative impulses of reaction are loosed, rendering self-governance nigh unachievable.
There will be much to discuss as investigations unfold to ascertain the most recent perpetrator’s motives and views. Early reports seem to indicate the shooter’s internalization of the pro-war media’s apocalyptic rhetoric describing the Ukraine war and Donald Trump’s position on the conflict. No matter the cause or perpetrators, I am a young writer who is distressed by the state of the nation I am inheriting. In keeping with our republican tradition and in keeping with plain old common sense, I’m writing the most explicit plea for sanity that I can. It’s time to take a step back and cool it off.
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