In Lisa’s column last month, “Willingness and Commitment,” she wrote about a gathering of people from different political tribes talking about stuff that matters.
“Is there any hope for a restoration of civil dialogue in our respective communities?” she asked.
Lisa came away from that meeting encouraged, but the column got mixed reviews.
Some readers appreciated the call for dialogue, but others asked why they should be expected to talk to anyone obviously out to destroy the country, our state, or community, in their view.
They pointed to the Democratic legislature as responsible for rising crime, others called out protesters and counter-protesters of the war in Israel, or Black Lives Matter, or anti-COVID mask mandates, or the January 6 Capitol attack.
One good reason we need to talk, perhaps the best one, is because a 20-year-old man with a semi-automatic rifle tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump July 13 for reasons still unknown. The shooter hit Trump’s right ear, gravely injured two audience members, and killed a third who shielded family members with his body.
In a statement immediately after the shooting, Trump said, “In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand united, and show our true character as Americans, remaining strong and determined, and not allowing evil to win.”
The next day, former First Lady Melania Trump wrote, “I am thinking of you now, my fellow Americans. ... To the families of the innocent victims who are now suffering from this heinous act, I humbly offer my sincerest sympathy. ... And let us remember that when the time comes to look beyond the left and the right, beyond the red and the blue, we all come from families with the passion to fight for a better life together.”
This past March, President Joe Biden said in his State of the Union speech, “There’s no place for political violence in America, ... and we must give hate and extremism in any form no safe harbor.” Some congress members in the chamber jeered and booed.
Trump supporters blamed the opposition’s inflammatory language for the shooting. Journalists at the scene reported crowd members turning on them in the press area, shouting, “You did this! This is your fault!” One congressman called for Biden’s arrest.
These events follow Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts saying in an interview the country is in a “second American Revolution” that will be bloodless “if the left allows it to be.”
He was describing that think tank’s Project 2025 (see also the separate but overlapping Trump Agenda 47), a 900-plus page planning document for a next Trump Administration that redefines America and Americans. His statement sounds more ominous now after this bloodshed, but it remains the classic threat of the abuser: Don’t make me hurt you.
Sen. Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, in 2020 published a column in The New York Times invoking the Insurrection Act so armed troops could stop the “cadres of left-wing radicals like Antifa” in overwhelmingly peaceful Black Lives Matter protests (look it up, we did), and who earlier this year urged violence against peaceful pro-Palestinian protesters. But after the shooting, he said on CBS that “(Americans should settle) differences through political debates and through elections. We don’t settle them through violence.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders, that wild-eyed, hectoring Independent grandpa from Vermont, said on NBC, “If there’s any silver lining in this tragedy, it’s to figure out how we go forward peacefully, constructively, and intelligently. ... The bottom line is, what we need as a nation, what a democracy is about, is not radical rhetoric. What it is about is a serious discussion of where we are as a nation and how we go forward. You know, in a certain way ... politics should be kind of boring.”
His Vermont office was firebombed last April. Sanders wasn’t there, but it was a serious incident, and his staff had to be rescued by firefighters. The arsonist was arrested two days later.
Sanders is maybe not the best advocate for boring, but if these two characters can agree on the need for civility, maybe we should listen.
Here are some more good reasons we need to talk.
According to the FBI Crime Data Explorer, Washington is the second most dangerous state in the union. Our violent crime rate is 1.3% lower than the national average, but our property crime is the worst in the U.S., although it fell 11.9% last year. Overall crime dropped statewide except for vehicle thefts and hate crimes, up 5.5%, according to the 2023 annual report from the Washington Association of Sheriffs & Police Chiefs.
In January, the U.S. Capitol Police reported that threats they’ve investigated against lawmakers increased by 500 last year to 8,008 cases, the second-highest total in the agency’s history. That number is expected to grow this election year. The Department of Justice has added three attorneys to its staff just to prosecute those threats.
In a national June survey conducted by the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, 10% of respondents said violence would be justified to prevent Trump from becoming president. One-third of them own a gun. Seven percent said violence would be justified to return him to the presidency, and half of them were gun owners.
But that same survey found that 80% of Americans oppose political violence of any kind. Let’s remember that.
Still, how do we talk to each other? We found this advice:
Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.
Why do you see the mote in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the beam in your own?
First, take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the mote out of your neighbor’s eye.
—From the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 7:1-5
