Violence Begets Violence

When I watched—repeatedly—the news report of the assassination attempt against Donald Trump, my heart time-travelled. To Robert Kennedy shot dead. To Martin King and Malcolm X, shot dead. To John Kennedy, shot dead. To Gabby Gifford, Ronald Reagan and George Wallace. To the people acting very surprised at this violent act, I say, “Why are you surprised? This is a shoot-em-up nation. Ask Medgar Evers, and Fred Hampton. This is what we do.” We shoot school children, and concert goers, and Black folk in grocery stores, or jogging on the street. We shoot strangers on our porch, and we shoot attendants in nail salons. We shoot people in church, and people in discos. We shoot for territory, for power; we shoot-em-up because we have easy access to guns, and we have easy access to our rage, disappointment, and grievances.

Yes, this shooting is in the context of a vitriolic political climate in a very tense presidential election season. But here’s what is also true: The forces that culminated in Saturday’s shooting did not start on that stage in Pennsylvania. They’re as old as the country itself, a swirling hatred Trump has fed ever since he descended that golden escalator in 2016. The very cruelty, bigotry, and chaos that have defined his campaigns and presidency are inextricably tied to what pushed a 20-year-old Republican to pull the trigger. Trump’s many crimes are coming home to roost but—if we do not uproot this evil from our public life—all of us will suffer.

 White supremacists in America have always needed an enemy, an “other” on which to project their anxieties and fears. Indigenous people labeled as “savages” who must be killed to safeguard “civilization” as the country expanded West. Free Black people hunted after emancipation—and shackled before—because we threatened the “purity” of whiteness. When domestic “others” were insufficient, the country has outsourced—terrorizing Central America, Vietnam, Afghanistan and so many other places so we can be “free.” Trump has simply channeled this foundational violence and directed it at everyone in this country who disagrees with him, even his own Vice President! From claims that Democratic politicians “hate America,” to lies about “woke” educators sexually abusing children and “critical race theory” persecuting white folks, he has portrayed millions of his neighbors as active coconspirators against the nation—traitors who must be purged.

 This kind of rhetoric has consequences. It fuels the lynching of folks like Ahmaud Arbery and Black people around the country, murdered by people who treat Black skin as a crime. It’s led to the theft of people’s bodily autonomy, as abortion rights and gender affirming care are gutted. It has created the conditions where protestors and counter-protesters now routinely fight each other in the street. And it has reignited overt white supremacy, as hate groups grow bolder and bolder and now shape the Republican platform. From proclaiming that police should “rough up” dissenters, to ordering border patrols to shoot migrants, to Saturday’s grim image of the bloodied former President raising a fist and shouting “Fight! Fight! Fight!” Trump has been preaching violence. We are living the result. As the Bible says, we reap what we sow.

 Add into this mix the fact that anyone can easily acquire weapons of war, and the situation becomes even more dire and volatile. Trump was shot, in part, because a man who cannot even legally drink could easily access an AR-15. He took one of the 400 million+ guns swirling in this country, stepped into this river of blood, and now another person is dead—two more seriously wounded. And just to be clear, that poor innocent man who died? Anyone who thinks he died, and Trump lived because of some magical, relationship Trump has with God is simply wrong! Did God not love the man who died? On the same day, 4 people died and 10 more were shot in Birmingham, Alabama in a mass shooting you likely didn’t even hear about. Did God not love them, too? In America, violent death has become an evil that haunts us daily. This November, we have a choice: Do we want more violence?  

It’s worth contrasting how Biden responded to the shooting. Upon learning the news, he immediately put out a statement expressing concern for Trump and condemning political violence. You will never hear me say that Biden is perfect, but there is also a stark difference between him and Trump. It is simply indisputable that Trump has, at every turn, offered violence to bring peace. Consider here January 6, and his willingness to incite a mob to maintain power.  Whether it’s loosening gun laws, endorsing stop-and-frisk, advocating mass deportation, or calling people “vermin,” Trump has wholeheartedly embraced a fascism that seeks to shape our nation to its will by force. Biden, for all his flaws, still believes in democracy, still calls for this country to rise above the original sins of its founding. These approaches are not the same: One will thrust us further into degradation and death, one offers at least the hope of something better. I say this even as I grieve the ongoing slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. As horrible as this is—and it is horrible—Trump will, if the past is a predictor of the future, only offer up more violence.

But all of us must nurture something better, too. We who believe in freedom and peace must embody those values in our actions. When we protest, when we organize—when we show up anywhere from the dinner table to the board room—we must ask ourselves: Am I feeding into forces that help gather people together in love? Or cultivating the ones that tear us apart with violence? We are perched on the edge of a terrifying precipice, and all of us are responsible for bringing us back from the brink.