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On Saturday, Corey Comperatore excitedly went to a rally to support a politician. That never should be a death sentence — not for a 50-year-old family man and firefighter, not for anyone.
A family has lost their beloved father, husband, son, brother who died protecting them. All of America must grieve with them, and help steer our political discourse toward a cooler, kinder and safer place.
The evil attempt to assassinate Donald Trump, and the lives tragically caught in the line of fire, must be a wakeup call to this entire nation. Everyone, including those of us who write for newspapers, need to reflect on the ways that we engage with and help shape the political conversation in this country.
Saturday’s tragic and traumatic events should leave no doubt that we all can and must do better.
Much has been said in the past few days about how “this is not who we are.” That political violence is not who we are as Americans. Sadly, it has too often been part of our country’s past and present. Horrific assassinations, gruesome attacks on politicians and their families, a traumatic attack on the U.S. Capitol. It falls to all of us moving forward as Americans to prove that those individual instances of horror do not define us and our political debates.
Political violence is never acceptable, and must be repudiated at every turn. We settle political disagreements with debate and with our votes, not with violence.
There have also been many appeals to unity in the past few days, and rightly so. But unity does not mean unanimity. It does not mean that abhorrent ideas and policies that degrade and diminish our fellow Americans should be accepted. Criticism and opposition to such ideas are not attacks. They are not calls to violence. They are a reflection of deep differences in the views and aspirations for the future of America.
It is not shocking that different people have different ideas of what America is and what it should become. Those differences, however, cannot be so deep that we cannot work together on the critical issues facing our country and our world. They cannot become so deep that we view those who disagree with us as enemies or traitors.
We can and must still disagree, strongly and passionately, but it is how we disagree that matters. People who have different views are not enemies. We cannot allow ourselves to go farther down that dark road.
There is reason to hope that President Joe Biden and former President Trump, though in the midst of a bitter presidential election, can help chart a less divisive path and tone for the country without sidestepping the substantial differences between them. They don’t have to pretend that they agree with each other or even that they like each other. However, dialing back the notion that either is an enemy of theirs or an enemy of democracy could help bring this country back from the brink.
In his remarks from the Oval Office on Sunday night, Biden laid out a road map for working through such disagreements.
“The Republican convention will start tomorrow. I have no doubt they’ll criticize my record and offer their own vision for this country,” the president said. “I’ll be traveling this week, making the case for our record and the vision — my vision of the country — our vision.”
“I’ll continue to speak out strongly for our democracy, stand up for our Constitution and the rule of law, to call for action at the ballot box, no violence on our streets,” Biden continued. “That’s how democracy should work. We debate and disagree. We compare and contrast the character of the candidates, the records, the issues, the agenda, the vision for America.”
Trump has encouragingly made repeated appeals to unity in his statements since the attempted assassination. And he has indicated that the attempt on his life may soften his approach at the Republican National Convention this week.
“I had all prepared an extremely tough speech, really good, all about the corrupt, horrible administration,” Trump told the New York Post on Sunday. “But I threw it away.”
“This is a chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world, together. The speech will be a lot different, a lot different than it would’ve been two days ago,” he also told the Washington Examiner.
We hope the tone from both Trump and Biden can remain conciliatory, helping to unite the country around the idea that violence is unacceptable — even as people continue to disagree, strongly but respectfully, on certain issues.
“The details of the horrific attack will continue to be investigated in the coming days and weeks,” Maine Senate Republicans said in a statement on Sunday. “However, we take the opportunity now to condemn this type of violence and all violence – politically motivated or otherwise.”
That condemnation is both strong and necessary. We cannot solve our political disputes through violence, or cast political opponents as enemies. As we mourn the life lost on Saturday, hope for a speedy recovery for those injured, and remain grateful that the tragic events didn’t get any worse, we must also reflect on ways to turn the temperature down moving forward. Americans don’t have to agree on everything, in fact we shouldn’t, but we should be able to agree that political disputes are settled with votes not with violence.
