Special Edition: Bullet Dodged (16 July, 2024)
Welcome to another special edition of Home & Away. Here at Home, the last 48 plus hours have been dominated by the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, his selection of J.D. Vance as his running mate, and the beginning of the Republican Convention in Milwaukee.
Trump literally and figuratively dodged a bullet from an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle shot by a 20-year-old would be assassin. But so did the United States. I shudder to think about what might have ensued if Trump had indeed been killed. It does not require a fevered brain to imagine angry riots carried out by armed supporters of the former president as well as the targeting of police or secret service, government officials, and select media personalities.
Political violence has long been a part of the American tradition, but in recent years it has gained traction. It is not just our politics that have grown more polarized. It is also that our society has become far less of a single one.
Sorting—people choosing to live among those they find similar when it comes to color, religion, education, wealth, and politics—is well-advanced. Our communities and states are becoming increasingly blue or red—and less purple. This phenomenon was already widespread by the latter half of the 20th century, but my guess is that certain technological innovations and Covid exacerbated matters as both tend to feed isolation. The absence of required public service, a lack of quality civics teaching in our schools, and fragmented traditional and social media have exacerbated an already troubling situation. We are less connected with others different from us than we used to be. It is harder to work with—and easier to vilify and even use force against—those with whom we feel little or no connection.
This was all something I worried about in The Bill of Obligations. The fifth obligation is to reject violence, more explicitly political violence. Such violence (as opposed to crime) seeks to advance political goals. This also happens to meet the definition of terrorism, which is the use of violence against civilians for a political purpose.
For some, the ends may justify the means. For others, it may be born out of frustration. That matters not. Whatever the motive, it threatens democracy not just now but also in the future, as people will turn toward authoritarianism if democracy comes to be associated with lawlessness.
I worry less about a second civil war than I do about the breakdown of order. Northern Ireland, where I served as U.S. envoy from 2001-2003 and then again in 2013 as an international mediator, is what comes to mind. And yes, it can happen here.
The good news is that even after events like this weekend’s, this outcome is anything but inevitable. How can it be prevented? Politicians of every orientation need to denounce political violence in unqualified terms. They should resist trafficking in conspiracy theories. Voters can and should make this a litmus test. Religious leaders, teachers, parents, all of us have a role to play, both in what we say and what we do.
At the same time, we need to be careful not to go too far. We do not want to destroy our democracy in the name of saving it. Yes, we must avoid incitement or any apology for political violence. To be sure, we need to mind our words and avoid any violence-related metaphors. But we cannot allow this to become an excuse to suppress free speech. Nor can we hold back on criticism of what a public figure advocates or does when it is warranted. Democracy is not about denying or eliminating differences but living with them civilly and working to bridge them for the common good.
I do not pretend to have a crystal ball, so I cannot tell you what the political effect of the attempted assassination will be. My hunch though is that it will strengthen Trump’s chances this fall. The defiant images of him on the platform Saturday as well as his dramatic arrival (with bandaged ear) at the Convention last night project strength and resilience. At some point over the next four months these recent events will likely fade somewhat, but they will not disappear entirely.
Mr. Trump also benefitted from Monday’s ruling of Judge Aileen Cannon, whom he appointed, to dismiss the criminal case brought against him in Florida for illegal possession of classified documents and obstruction of justice. She did not rule on the merits of the case but sided with Trump’s lawyers that the Department of Justice improperly appointed special counsel Jack Smith. It is long since time to move on from the notion that Trump’s path to the White House will somehow be blocked by legal challenges.
Less clear is that Trump gained from his choice of J.D. Vance as his vice president. Vance is young (39), a veteran, and smart. At the same time, he is inexperienced (he entered the Senate in 2023), a populist, and intemperate. I somehow doubt his potential to be a capable president loomed large in Trump’s choice. Vance’s principal attribute appears to be that he is well-suited to taking low road in the campaign, having already explicitly suggested that the Biden campaign’s rhetoric led directly to the attempted assassination. Vance may fire up the base and help with disaffected middle-class voters, but it is hard to see how he broadens Trump’s appeal to most independents, especially considering his extreme views on abortion and his opposition to support for Ukraine.
All this took the spotlight off of Joe Biden and the efforts by some to persuade him to step aside. This is too bad, as the week’s events have further fueled Trump’s campaign. Meanwhile, the polling for Biden is going from bad to worse, as he is losing in the swing states while states long considered safe are inching closer to toss-ups.
The President gave a decent address to the nation Sunday night and sat for an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt on Monday, but my sense is that most voters have made up their mind on Biden and are now largely tuning him out. The Democrats need to shake things up, to change the narrative, and the best—and only—way to do that at this point is for the president to step aside. Alas, there is no sign he is about to do that, which suggests that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to turn a political tide that is increasingly running in Trump’s favor.
One final point. Think of it as a mini-Away. Reactions from global leaders to the shooting came in quickly. Most (Russia was the most obvious outlier) wished the former president well and talked about the importance of the rule of law in a democracy.
My hunch, though, is that privately many leaders of our friends and allies were concerned about what this says about the United States—namely, that it is deeply divided, awash in guns, and prone to violence, and that these traits could undermine its ability to be an effective partner for them in the world. My other hunch is that events here at Home will reinforce their thinking that they had better prepare themselves for a second Trump presidency.
Check out The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens