Assassination Attempt Should Serve as a Wake-Up Call - Horowitz

Assassination Attempt Should Serve as a Wake-Up Call - Horowitz

 

On Saturday night, a fellow American, Corey Comperatore-- a firefighter, husband and father -- lost his life simply because he decided to attend a political rally.  He died a hero, deliberately putting himself in the way of bullets that may otherwise have killed members of his family. Two other fellow citizens were seriously injured, and former President Donald Trump was bloodied by a bullet that grazed his ear, narrowly avoiding being assassinated by a 20-year-old man spraying bullets from an AR-15-style rifle and aiming directly at him.

GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST

While the gunman’s motives have yet to be uncovered and we should be cautious in jumping to conclusions, the rise in the number of documented threats against our elected officials and the uptick in violent incidents are in large measure a result of an increasingly polarized and poisonous political environment in which we see our political opponents as mortal enemies rather than as fellow citizens with whom we happen to disagree.

 

Even in the wake of this tragedy, there was little pause in the misinformation, rush to assign blame, and provocative takes that attract eyeballs on social media and cable television.  Congressman Mike Collins (R-GA) baselessly tweeted that Joe Biden “ordered the hit” and other Republican elected officials, including Senator J.D. Vance, Donald Trump’s choice of vice president, directly blamed Biden. On right-wing social media and websites, there were plenty of accusations of a “deep state cabal" trying to kill the former president.  On the other hand, some on the left baselessly called the attempted assassination a "false flag" operation designed to help the former president.

 

This evidence-free assignment of blame is dangerous.  As Megan McBride, a senior research scientist with the Institute for Public Research at CNA, a nonprofit that studies security issues, told Reuters, “U.S. leaders have a brief window to cool partisan hatred before a retaliatory cycle emerges. Research shows that support for political violence increases when people believe the other side supports it.”

 

In three separate addresses to the nation over the weekend, President Biden struck the right tone, calling for lowering the temperature, reminding us of our shared values, and putting the assassination attempt in context.  “A former president was shot.  An American citizen killed while simply exercising his freedom to support the candidate of his choosing,” the president remarked. “We cannot — we must not go down this road in America.  We’ve traveled it before throughout our history.  Violence has never been the answer, whether it’s with members of Congress in both parties being targeted in the shot, or a violent mob attacking the Capitol on January 6th, or a brutal attack on the spouse of former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, or information and intimidation on election officials, or the kidnapping plot against a sitting governor, or an attempted assassination on Donald Trump.”

 

Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly refused to rule out violence and even called for it on occasion, has an opportunity to rise to the occasion when he speaks at the Republican National Convention on Thursday night. There are signs that the former president recognizes what is required.  “The speech will be a lot different, a lot different than it would have been two days ago," Mr. Trump told reporters yesterday.  “It is a chance to bring the country together. I was given that chance.”

 

As President Biden told the American people over the weekend, “politics ought to be an arena for peaceful debate, to pursue justice, to make decisions guided by the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.  We stand for an America not of extremism and fury but of decency and grace.”  While it is still vital to vigorously discuss our disagreements on issues and whom should lead us, this is the fundamental common ground on which we should be able to come together.  It is now imperative that we do so.