A History Of Violence

 Paul Campos noted a few things that I was thinking about when it comes to political violence in America. The last serious attempt in a president or presidential candidate was the 1981 attack on Ronald Reagan, However, starting with JFK's assassination, we have the assassinations of his brother Robert and Martin Luther King within a few months of each other. We also have the attempts on the lives of George Wallace and two attempts on Gerald Ford by members of the Manson Family. 

From 1981 2008, there have been roughly three major acts of political violence that I can think of. There was the Oklahoma City bombing, the attempt on Gabby Gifford's life and the shooting at the House Republican softball game. You could plausibly include the man who broke into Nancy Pelosi's house and beat her husband with a hammer.

In other words, from 1963-1981 we had a LOT of political violence in this country and around the world. I think there were multiple attempts - successful and not - on American ambassadors during that period, too. Hijackings were common, and most of them had political motives.

Going further back, FDR was shot at and nearly killed in the period between his election and inauguration in 1933. His cousin Teddy was shot on the way to giving a speech and Teddy himself had become president because of an assassin's bullet. McKinley as the third president to die at an assassin's hand from 1865 through 1901, joining Lincoln and Garfield. 

So this has been a period where political violence has been unusually rare in American history. We did have the anthrax scare after 9/11 and there were a few Trumpist figures who were planning things like pipe bombings.

The biggest act of political violence since Oklahoma City and yesterday was January 6th.

Historically speaking, I think we have to look at that attempt to overthrow the 2020 election as the beginning of a cycle of violence that we are in the midst of but has no clear endpoint or consistent theme. Hell, yesterday's shooter's motive might not even have been purely political. It might have been a dramatic suicide-by-cop whereby your death is invested with meaning because you killed a famous person - a sort of John Hinckley dynamic.

In a sane world, Biden and Trump would meet in the next few days and record a message asking for calm and pledging to resolve our differences via the ballot not the bullet. Of course, Trump won't do that, and it's unclear whether his reluctance will be noted, but perhaps nearly getting shot in the head will make him re-think his embrace of violence as a political tool to play with casually. 

I'm not holding my breath that a new more sober Trump will emerge from this, but I am holding my breath for whatever the gods of chaos have in store for us next.

UPDATE: I forgot Charlottesville, the man killed trying to attack an FBI office in Cincinnati and the plan to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer. But, again, this trend toward political violence has been a feature of the rise of Donald Trump.