This is not a hopeful day.
A young gunman’s attempt to assassinate former President Donald Trump at the Republican’s Pennsylvania rally Saturday will have ramifications reverberating around the country, stoking the anger and division that is already at a fever pitch.
It is a stroke of luck that Trump survived. The gunman’s bullet pierced his ear while he was speaking in front of a crowd of his supporters and admirers. An inch to the right, a slight turn of the head, and America would have witnessed the murder of the first president, or presidential contender, in more than a half-century since President John F. Kennedy and then his brother, candidate Robert F. Kennedy, were assassinated.
Saturday’s act was political violence of the highest order. To say it goes against the core principles of democracy is an understatement of the greatest magnitude. Trying to derail the democratic process with a gun is a signal that something is failing in America.
Just a few weeks ago, before the Fourth of July holiday, we used this space to ask Americans to remember all the things that unite us, not what divides us. Today, our hope for that fades ever further.
Seeing the attempted murder of the former president in the middle of a campaign to reclaim the office should cause sorrow, heartache and reflection across this nation. Instead, it will stoke recrimination, charges and conspiracy theories.
It was disappointing that immediately in the aftermath Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, e Trump’s vice president choice, pointed the finger of blame at Democratic President Joe Biden, blaming him for rhetoric that led to the shooting.
That is irresponsible coming from a U.S. Senator.
No one knows the motive of the 20-year-old who tried to kill Trump. The details about the shooter are scarce: that he was a registered Republican but had donated $15 to a Democratic cause. That this fall would have been the first time he could vote in a presidential election. That he used a long gun legally purchased by his father, that he was a 2022 high school graduate, a good student who worked at a nursing home. That he had explosives in his car.
What goes through a person’s mind to inspire them to such a violent and reprehensible act? A full picture may never materialize. He was killed by police sharpshooters seconds after shooting Trump, killing a rally attendee and wounding another.
Vance wasn’t wrong about political rhetoric, except that is has been a war of words from both sides. Too much of the rhetoric is framed as an actual war for the soul of America.
Every highly charged statement made by Democrats about another Trump presidency is matched by equally vehement statements by Republicans about giving Biden a second term. There are no innocent parties here when it comes to ratcheting up the level of political discourse.
The previous time a gunman tried to end a president’s life was when a man shot President Ronald Reagan in 1981. Six years before that, in 1975, a woman attempted to kill President Gerald Ford.
This nation had gone more than four decades since such a vile act, but the feeling America had made progress in the years since evaporated in a few seconds in western Pennsylvania. And to think, that attack could have taken place almost anywhere. It was only months ago that the former president had a rally in Wildwood.
There is a major choice voters will be making at the ballot box in November when Americans decide who will lead the nation for the next four years. It should have been so obvious to say the election must not be marred by violence, but it is too late.
We can hope and pray this aberrant act shocks the conscience of Americans into turning down the heat and moving away from inflammatory rhetoric, but we are not optimistic.