Pennsylvania shooting should be a wake-up call for the next three-plus months

As with all such horrific acts of political violence throughout American history, this past weekend’s attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump has prompted an array of immediate and widely varying responses.

And this reality has, of course, been only enhanced by the tumultuous politics of the present moment.

Now, add in the frequently toxic ingredient of social media platforms that provide a vehicle for the voicing of people’s darkest emotions and instincts and the recipe for a descent into a destructive cycle of violence is clearly present.

We’re already reading and hearing numerous attempts to assign blame for the shooting, promote conspiracy theories, and even threaten vengeance.

And it’s in light of all this that it’s absolutely imperative that all people – whether they support Trump or oppose everything he stands for – come together to condemn the attack, remember the other victims, and say a loud and determined “no more” to the scourge of political violence.

The proof of this assessment can be seen in conflict after conflict throughout history and across the globe in the 21st Century.

In virtually every instance in which groups of people have allowed political differences to spiral into violence, there is a strong element of grievance and response.

One group is wronged (or perceives that it has been wronged) and then takes action that it feels is justified to “even the score.” And thus, the cycle begins. Before long, no one can even remember who started things.

To their credit, both President Joe Biden and Trump have spoken out in the hours since the shooting in favor of national unity and against such score-settling violence.

Let’s hope that this continues and that they and their supporters and surrogates continue to speak the truth that political violence of any kind and for any purpose is an assault on our nation, Constitution, and way of life.

The challenge for all parties going forward is to somehow hold on to this spirit and resist the temptation to commence casting blame.

It won’t be easy.

Trump critics and opponents continue to believe that the former president precipitated the deadly January 6, 2021 insurrection and the specter of threats and violence that have plagued election officials across the nation (and our politics more generally) in the years since with his dogged refusal to accept the 2020 election results.

And while the evidence is only now beginning to be collected and assessed by law enforcement officials, some Trump supporters are already attributing responsibility for the attempted assassination to the demonization that Trump has received from his critics ever since he arrived on the political stage nearly a decade ago.

In such an environment, the temptation to wallow in the events and grievances of the past will be strong.

Somehow, however, all parties need to find a way to move beyond accusations and recriminations about past events, admit their own mistakes and imperfections, and get back to a debate about the thing they have the power to control: the future.

After all, it’s still the case that in just over 100 days, the nation will hold an enormously important election that will determine its path for the next several years.

On November 5th, voters will do much to decide a host of enormously important questions:

• Will the U.S. continue to enact policies that target the global climate emergency?
• Will it reject or allow the enactment of further restrictions on human reproduction?
• Will it continue the fiscal and economic policies that have done so much post-pandemic to reduce poverty and combat inequality?
• Will it say ‘no’ to the resurgence of racism and white nationalism?
• Will it allow state governments to rig elections through partisan gerrymandering?
• Will it enact comprehensive immigration reform that provides a path to legal status for millions of people living in the shadows or embark upon a policy of mass deportation?
• Will it retreat from the modest progress it has made moving toward equality for LGBTQ+ people?
• Will it empower regulators to keep a modest check on the profits and practices of massive multinational corporations that control more and more of our lives?
• Will it abandon the 75-year-old NATO alliance?
• Will it abandon the people of Ukraine in their existential war against Russian aggression?
• Will it do anything to curb the widespread availability of weapons of war like the one the would-be assassin used in Pennsylvania last Saturday?

In short, this past weekend’s event could serve as a massive distraction – a disaster that takes our collective eye away from the central issues that confront us and into the muck of blame, personal attacks and violence.

If we’re lucky and work to make it happen, however, it might just serve as a wake-up call to all Americans to ratchet back the rhetoric and to focus instead for the next three-plus months on a serious discussion about the kind of nation in which they want to live.