Gene J. Puskar / Associated Press
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is helped off the stage at a campaign event in Butler, Pa., on Saturday, July 13, 2024.
Sunday, July 14, 2024 | 2 a.m.
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Thank god it wasn’t worse. And let this be a warning for America.
Details are still being sorted out at the time of this writing, but what we do know with certainty is that the site of a rally Saturday for former president and presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee Donald Trump is now a crime scene.
Approximately five minutes after taking the stage in Butler, Pa., several gunshots rang out. Trump swatted at his ear and crouched to the ground as the crowd screamed and Secret Service agents rushed the stage to protect the 78-year-old candidate.
Moments later, as he was escorted off stage, blood could be seen coming from Trump’s ear and running down his face. Reports also indicate that one of the rally’s attendees was killed and another was wounded and is in critical condition. The gunman too is also dead.
The gunman’s motives and identity had yet to be confirmed at the time of this writing, but for the purpose of this editorial, it doesn’t matter. There is absolutely no justification for political violence.
None.
It doesn’t matter how draconian and oppressive Trump’s political ideologies might be or how vile his rhetoric is or how eager he is to call for political violence. In a democratic society we all agree to settle political differences at the ballot box and in peaceful debate. Those who do not abide by this agreement and instead engage in violence are a threat to the very fabric of democracy, and their actions cannot be excused.
To be sure, Trump and the GOP’s use of violent political rhetoric is itself a threat to democracy. MAGA’s love of making death threats and militia fantasies is well known. By normalizing violent speech and violent imagery, as well as using firearms as props in their political theater, Trump and the GOP have created the very circumstances in which yesterday’s shooting was all but guaranteed to occur.
Early in his presidency, Trump failed to condemn the violent white nationalists who marched through the streets of Charlottesville, Va., carrying tiki torches and chanting “Jews will not replace us.” One of those marchers went on to kill 32-year-old Heather Heyer just hours later.
In 2020, when a MAGA convoy of trucks tried to run a Biden campaign bus off the road, the collective reaction from the GOP leadership was nothing more than a shrug. Trump even suggested that things like this just “happen.”
When former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband was bludgeoned with a hammer in his home, it became a punch line for Trump and right-wing media personalities on social media.
Trump has never told his followers to behave peacefully and sits silently as anyone who opposes him is buried under a cascade of threats.
Let’s not forget that on Jan. 6, 2021, rioters killed police and hunted for the vice president, Pelosi and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., by name. Nor should we forget that there have been arrests of people seeking to harm conservative Supreme Court justices and that a gunman attacked a Republican congressional baseball game practice, severely wounding Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was the object of a plot to kidnap and kill her by armed right-wing militia members. Other armed militia members invaded the Michigan statehouse.
Political violence begets political violence — it starts with violent rhetoric and escalates from there. Trump has never told his followers to stop with threats and intimidation. He visibly revels in it.
We wonder on this heartbreaking day if Trump feels that the bullet that grazed his ear is something that just “happens.”
Of course, political violence doesn’t just happen. It is provoked by shameful politicians leaning into the constant drumbeat of violence against their fellow Americans and the promise of pardons and other means of escaping accountability.
Just a few months after the Jan. 6 attack, a man at a conservative political rally in Idaho publicly declared that he was ready to use his guns to kill Democrats. Rather than condemning that speech, Trump’s MAGA extremists erupted in cheers.
In March of this year, following a Kansas GOP event in which Americans were invited to punch, kick or curb stomp an effigy of President Joe Biden, the best that GOP leadership could muster was a statement about how the event was “unfortunate” and demonstrated “poor judgment.”
Violence is not a fringe part of the MAGA movement. Trump and his supporters are not innocent bystanders, they are the cause and the instigators. Trump himself has suggested beating up people who espouse liberal ideals and shooting suspected migrants and peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters.
The violent political climate is endemic in MAGA, and yet today its leader and the injured and traumatized followers at his rally are the victims. It’s tragic and, one hopes, a wakeup call.
Nothing justifies violence against Trump or any other person based on their political beliefs or ideology. It is hard to find anything more un-American than this.
Innocent people — spectators at yesterday’s rally — are dead because someone believed that political differences justify violence. More innocent lives will be lost if we don’t demand an end to the violence. Next time it could be your neighbor or loved one whose life is lost.
An investigation by Reuters identified at least 39 people who lost their lives to acts of political violence between 2021 and 2023. Twenty-four of those died in politically motivated mass killings that threaten anyone who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, no matter what their political beliefs might be.
What will it take for us to say, “enough is enough”?
What will it take for us to shame and reject every member of our society who promotes the use of guns and other weapons as tools of political change? What will it take for us to shame and reject those who use violent rhetoric and advocate for harming those with whom they disagree?
Trump and the MAGA right may have helped normalize political violence, promoted the presence of guns as the solution for every problem and created the circumstances for Saturday’s shooting, but it is a problem that every single person living in this country must help address.
Let us pray for America. And pray that the people who celebrate political violence realize they can be the targets of that violence too. It must end.
