on the assassination attempt of donald j. trump:
are your words worth the consequences?
Yesterday, a gunman attempted to murder the former President of the United States of America. In doing so, he killed fire chief Corey Comperatore and lit a partisan firestorm that may very well kill our republic too.
Conspiracy theories are flooding the Internet. “STAGED” trended on Twitter for hours following the attack. A Democratic strategist encouraged the press to explore the attack as a potential false flag to help Republican electoral chances. Multiple elected Republican lawmakers have accused the Democrats of directly inciting, or even planning, this attack.
There’s still many unknowns, as my workplace The Dispatch reported last night, but it’s unlikely either extreme will be right. The shooting, carried out by a registered Republican without ties to the Republican establishment, probably wasn’t paid by operatives or politically motivated by far-left ideas.
But, regardless of the truth, this much is clear. Trust — in the media, the government, the Secret Service, the political parties, and our fellow Americans — is fraying in front of our eyes.
This trust has always been integral to the extraordinarily fragile American Experiment. We are a melting pot, ascribing to a rare form of inclusive civic nationalism — anyone can be American, because America is an idea one protects and puts trust in. Pluralism, a competition and acceptance of people and ideals, is the lifeblood of our democracy; that, too, requires we trust people different than us. We grant people citizenship for birth on American soil, implicitly trusting that they, too, would see America as valuable enough to belong to.
To borrow a quote from my friend Siddhu Pachipala, who recently published his own op-ed on liberal undergraduate echo chambers: “Donald Trump’s gunshot wound is an on-the-nose — or on-the-ear — reminder that American politics needs a little more hearing… and healing.”
That firestorm I mentioned before? Dangerous. Terrifying. Demoralizing. But not uncontrollable. We still have the reigns, and we, the People, need to be responsible for starting the healing process.
It’s time to listen to each other and put our trust in someone else’s hands.
Joe Biden may not have meant it, but when he said he wanted to put Donald Trump “in a bullseye,” he provided fodder for the fear and outrage many Republicans now feel. Donald Trump may not have meant it, but when he said he wanted to “lock them all up,” he increased the likelihood of threats towards Democratic lawmakers.
Both of these things can be true. This isn’t an attempt at a moral equivocation of those two phrases, but rather an acknowledgement, that our words have power beyond what we actually mean. Impact, not intent.
These two Presidents may have been irresponsible in different ways with the bully pulpit, but leaders are only as powerful as their followers. Currently, we, the followers, are spending our time accusing the other side of endangering democracy through these leaders’ actions.
Whether or not you believe that is true, the way you communicate that matters. Nuance, in the age of soundbites, matters. There can be no trust if there is no acknowledgment that even paranoids have real enemies. No side has clean hands.
The digital world also is not the untamable Wild West we often imagine it to be. Rage-bait algorithms and the perpetually negative news cycle only work when we allow them to work. Doom-scrolling into TikTok conspiracy land is an individual action, but it has collective consequences. Choosing to tweet about your hot take about the assassination attempt might be your own self-soothing tactic, but it could radicalize someone else.
Trust at a societal level is nebulous and imaginative, until it isn’t. We do the trusting, and we cause the distrusting. We can blame our leaders and these systems, or we can be the examples this country so desperately need.
It’s time to turn down the temperature. We must be the cooler heads that prevail.
United we stand. Divided we fall.
