After the terrible attempt to assassinate Donald Trump, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston put the problem besetting America thus: “As a nation, we must come to grips with the incessant violence that has too often become the norm. It must stop. We must find peaceful ways to resolve our differences and avoid all political violence of every kind”.
His observations were echoed by Archbishop Timothy Broglio who is President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops: “We pray for our country and for an end to political violence, which is never a solution to political disagreements”.
The sniper attack that almost killed the former president is one obvious manifestation of a violent society, which complacent liberals have assumed to be the preserve of the political right. We do not yet know the motivation of the sniper, who has been named as a 20-year old, Thomas Matthew Crooks, and now we shall never know, at least, from him, but it is at least possible that the attempted assassination was politically motivated and that the young man was attempting to express a loathing of Donald Trump’s politics. Loathing and fear in US politics has been powerfully stimulated by social media in recent years, which amplifies division and excludes users from contrary views in a way that was never previously normal.
Senator JD Vance, a Catholic convert and potential vice-presidential running mate for Donald Trump, expressed the view of many Republicans when he said: “Today is not just some isolated incident. The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump's attempted assassination.”
We must pause before attributing blame to individuals. The most perilous element of social media discourse is that it encourages a rush to judgment; indeed it is almost designed to encourage an escalation in any argument. It was interesting in the immediate aftermath of the attack that Elon Musk made clear his support for Donald Trump; he is, of course, the owner of X. And while political violence has obviously been tragically common in American politics, the rush to judgment (bizarrely, young social media users almost immediately assumed that the shooting was the work of Trump supporters, designed to shore up his campaign), the spread of false rumour and the spiral of hyperbole and outright mendacity has been intensified beyond measure by social media.
In today’s gospel reading Christ talks of that which defiles a man coming from inside him, including murder and slander. Slander, or taking away a man’s character, or telling falsehoods about him, is the most obvious temptation in politics and especially contemporary politics; murder may be the outcome of it. The Japanese prime minister Fumio Kashida, said after the attack “we must stand against any violence that threatens democracy”. And small wonder; in Japan in 2022 Shinzo Abe was killed during his own political campaign. This terrible aspect of the legitimate pursuit of power - demonising opponents - must be consciously eschewed. Careless talk costs lives. It is notable that the Democrats have put their attacks on Donald Trump on hold for now and it would be salutary if Republicans too were to be restrained in their public language. We can disagree profoundly, but without the language of hatred.
As the bishops say, “political violence is never a solution to political disagreements”. And violence may be verbal and demagogic as well as physical. It is a tragedy that two lives were lost in this appalling attack and we must thank God that Donald Trump’s life was spared. But rather than this being an occasion for more divisiveness in US politics it should be a sobering moment to take stock of how and why things came to this pass.
<em>(CNS photo/Kevin Lamarque, Reuters) </em>
