Political Violence Must Be Condemned by All Americans, We Are Thankful That Trump Was Not Seriously Harmed

Politics must never be so toxic that it leads to violence. The attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump must be condemned by all Americans, no matter which side of the political spectrum we stand.

There is no space for violence in politics. Actually, this should be true for all forms of violence and not just political violence.

For the same reason as humans, we are torn emotionally when mass shootings occur or that wars are ongoing in other parts of the world, as decent human beings, we are saddened that an attempt at Trump’s life occurred.

We mourn the loss of an innocent life taken at the rally in Pennsylvania and pray for the recovery of all those injured.

Violence do not happen in a vacuum
It’s also important to recognize that usually violence does not just happen spontaneously. The political climate in the past few years has elevated from division to hatred and a fear of fellow Americans who belong to the other party.

Trump should take this assassination attempt as a warning that the undercurrent of violence in his campaign messaging to his followers – constant reference to fellow Americans as enemies – is dangerous.

There is data that correlates an alarming connection between Trump’s political rise and the increase in political violence in America.

According to Capitol police in 2016 when Trump was not in office there were fewer than 900 threats against members of Congress. In 2017, after Trump’s first year in office, that figure quadrupled. The numbers continued to rise each year of his presidency and peaked at a whopping 9,700 in 2021.

In 2022, the first full year of Biden’s term, the numbers went down to 7,500. The trend started to reverse. Data for 2023 has yet to be made available.

We can also look to the Capitol riots of January 6, 2021. Remember that five lives were lost that day. And that should have been enough for Trump to have learned then that the undercurrent of violent speech can have deadly consequences.

Some Democratic Party politicians are also to blame for today’s toxic political climate.

American media – mainstream and independent – also have and do play a malignant role in fostering extreme division that could influence mentally unstable individuals to hyperfocus on a danger that’s outsized to reality, and influence that individual to act on this paranoia.

Lower the climate of hostility
The responsible action to take now for Trump, some Democrats and a few media outlets peddling toxic division is to lower the hostility. There is no need to heighten fearmongering to win an election.

Unfortunately, fearmongering has too often become the go to in campaigning because it works. Selling voters on the issues or a platform is not as effective as selling fear.

But as voters, we can reject that and punish with our votes those who take negative campaigning – those clearly hateful and demagogic – to a dangerously next level that opens the door to violence.

We are thankful that Trump is safe. Whether he’s learned from this tragic incident, we have yet to find out.