By Brigitte L. Nacos
After spending decades studying all aspects of political violence/terrorism, even the most horrific verbal and physical violence does not shock me. When I watched the assassination attempt on Donald Trump on live television, I was not surprised. Just as I was not surprised, when I saw the violent images of the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. No, I could not have predicted what would happened to whom at what venue. But when political actors and groups of one persuasion label opponents regularly as illegitimate, enemies, and evil threats, there will be violent consequences sooner or later. There is some evidence that political violence is contagious in that it persuades other actors to carry out similar attacks.
President Joe Biden asked Americans to take down the temperature of divisive discourse in the hope that a less hostile climate would prevent further violence. Don’t count on it. Both sides believe that the stakes in the upcoming elections are the highest in modern times.
This morning, congressman Scott Perry (R-PA) was interviewed on the BBC News Hour on Public Radio. Perry, a close Trump ally, was one of the House members involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 elections. Today, after some lip service to President Biden’s call for tuning down the temperature of the political rhetoric, he put all the blame for some of Trump’s rhetoric on the other side blaming the government and the weaponized Department of Justice for persecuting Donald Trump since 2015. In response, Trump was just defending himself.
But while it seems difficult for many commentators, especially those who are liberal, to set the record straight after a failed assassination attempt, it needs to be done.
Yes, there have been aggressive rhetoric and hate speech on the far-left that targeted Trump, MAGA, and the GOP. But whereas the far-right and its rhetoric have gone mainstream and were adopted by one of our two major parties, the far-left has not such a reach. There is no major far-left movement, party, and leader.
That is the difference.
The latest phase of the current political climate in our country began with the election of the first Black U.S. president in 2008. A few weeks after Barack Obama’s inauguration, the Tea Party was established—officially, as an anti-tax movement—even though Obama had not initiated legislation at that early time. Eventually, the libertarian—less government--wing of the movement was overshadowed by social/cultural/religious/white conservatives, many of whom were “birthers.”
Donald Trump made himself the self-appointed propagandist for the anti-Obama rumors that the sitting president was not born in the U.S. and therefore an illegitimate office holder and likely a Muslim, not a Christian. With that role on his resume, Trump won the support of many Tea Partiers, especially religious nationalists, and Birther conspiracy theorists, once he won the GOP presidential nomination in 2016. The extremism on Tea Party and Birther online discussion boards and social media became more pronounced in the MAGA movement and Trumpian GOP.
Their call to action was and remains, Attack, Attack, Attack.
Because President Biden mentioned the Jan 6 insurrection attempt among other violent attacks in his conciliatory speech, he was attacked by Republicans demanding to forget about Jan 6, not mentioning it any more. They defended their leader who has promised that he will pardon the “political prisoner” jailed for their Jan 6 crimes on day one of his second presidency.
It has been reported that Donald Trump rewrote his originally tough speech for the National Nominating Convention at Milwaukee this week and hast tuned it down. This was not exactly what he did yesterday in a post on Truth Social, when he wrote,
- “In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand United, and show our True Character as Americans, remaining Strong and Determined, and not allowing Evil to Win."
Nothing changed. Just another wording of what he has called repeatedly “the last battle” that his side is fighting and must win against the existential Evil threat.
This reality does not bode well for less hate speech and less violence.
To be fair, it doesn't appear that Thomas Crooks was a 1960s-style or self-radicalized lone-wolf terrorist but rather a black swan of the Jared Loughner, Elliot Rodger, Salvador Ramos, Adam Lanza, James Holmes, Chris Dorner, SeungHui Cho, etc. type who may have political rants but is really just a crazy. In other words, if as the evidence strongly indicates, Crooks is of the black-swan crazy mold, his attempt to shoot President Trump wasn't really an act of 'political violence' per se.
Posted by: Eric | August 04, 2024 at 11:42 AM