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Much has and will be said in the fallout of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump this weekend, but I am more concerned with what won’t be said because of it.
The Trump campaign was quick to blame Biden’s rhetoric as a motivator for the assassination attempt, and the media has eaten this up hook, line and sinker.
The problem for the Democrats is polls show many voters are concerned about the future of democracy, and highlighting this concern is a key way in which they have been mobilising their base in the lead up to an election in which voting is voluntary.
It must be said that many people concerned democracy is under threat are Trump supporters who have bought into the lie he didn’t lose the last election, but the Trump campaign understands all too well that playing on this fear disproportionately benefits the Democrats.
It would be a mistake for the Democrats to avoid stating the obvious, but following this incident it now appears almost certain that they will, because unlike Trump they don’t want to incite violence. To capitulate in this way is to do the wrong thing for the right reasons.
The fact is people can, and must, be honest about the threat Trump poses to democracy without inciting violence. All Democrats have to do is repeat the following line every day until election day: Trump is a threat to democracy, but so is political violence. The only answer to this threat is to vote Democrat at the next election.
Not that hard, is it?
And what about Trump’s rhetoric? This is a man who has said immigrants “are poisoning the blood of our country” and who regularly uses dehumanising language to describe his opponents, like when he referred to them as a “swarm of locusts”. He is a thug who jokes about violence, like the time he mocked Nancy Pelosi’s husband being bashed in the head with a hammer by a home intruder who was, unsurprisingly, a Trump supporter.
Here’s the deal: don’t talk like Hitler if you don’t want people to treat you like him. Don’t incite violence and you won’t beget more violence.
The shooter wasn’t a Democrat. He wasn’t an illegal immigrant. He wasn’t queer or a person of colour. He was a young, white man and a registered Republican.
The shooter was, in other words, nothing many Trump voters fear and the very thing Republicans should fear most in this moment — one of their own.
The Republican party has failed in its gatekeeping role. The convicted felon leading it and the cronies that enable him are a clear and present danger to American democracy and the global rules-based order.
Never forget that Trump incited an angry mob in a failed attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which he lost. This is not a man who has any intention of relinquishing power should it be bestowed upon him again.
That’s the reality. It might be hard to swallow for some. But it’s the truth, and it can’t be hidden for fear it might motivate others to do what Thomas Matthew Crooks attempted to do when he climbed that building and pulled the trigger, not least because Trump’s own words have already made his intentions clear to anyone listening.
Violence is not the answer. I do not condone Thomas Matthew Crooks’ actions, but I can’t shake the fear that no doubt motivated him to do what he did — that in the fullness of time Trump will act in such a way that what remains of the free world will look back and thank Thomas at least for trying.
Published 17 July 2024.
This article has been republished with the permission of the author. It originally appeared on his blog.
Photo by Gage Skidmore on Flickr (CC)
