By Moshe Gerstley, 5TJT Staff
I’ve thought a lot about the shooting on Saturday that left Former President Donald Trump bloodied, grazed by gunfire, and a spectator dead at a rally in Pennsylvania. Beyond the political ramifications, of which there are many, there are two core messages that echo in my mind that I thought to be important to highlight. The first, the new civic ecosystem in America that has made way for an environment that normalizes such brute political violence has gone too far. That to anyone of moral conscience is clear. This of course, however, has not occurred in a vacuum. Intensified rhetoric surrounding Trump and other high-profile political figures has skyrocketed over the last decade since just before Trump first rose to political prominence.
The political climate has become more vitriolic than ever before. “He’s a fascist,” and “the next Hitler.” CNN’s Scott Jennings, President Bush’s Deputy Director of Political Affairs, told the other panelists covering the assassination attempt that “the rhetoric around him [Trump] over the last few weeks, that if he wins an election our country will end—or democracy will end, it’s the last election we’ll ever have—these things have consequences.” That to me is self-evident. The blame, however, cannot solely lie in the hands of the left. The simple reality is, that we as a nation have become far too enraged, far too impassioned, and far too obsessed with politics. Melania said it best when she wrote of the would-be assassins’ capacities to see Trump only as a mere “inhuman political machine.” That, I believe, was only made possible because of both sides of our political divide. It is both sides that have villainized the other so much that we see them all as inhuman.
It’s become standard to hear of families broken, incapable of talking to one another in the age of Trump. It’s become usual to hear of workplaces wherein nobody can voice themselves. Political affiliations are no longer a part of one’s identity—it is their identity. This has inhibited our ability to find common ground in our love for something bigger than a party. One’s party has become something of a religion-of-sorts, a ground for worship that is ascribed supreme importance in too many American lives. This diversion from synergized patriotism for the country, dedication to family, and tenacity to create—and instead to a zeal for destruction, abandonment of the home, and self-loathing for one’s country is without a doubt the sword for which our nation may die. The perfunctory statements that followed the attack, calls for unity, and condemnations of political violence from all sides, are not enough. At the end of the day, it is the language we use to express our beliefs and characterize others in the weeks and months ahead that will actually matter.
Donald Trump on Sunday posted a two-word post simply exclaiming “UNITE AMERICA!” President Biden, too, in an Oval Office address that night called for unity and insisted the two were not “enemies.” Most others have expressed their shock and outrage at the sight of a president shot. That’s good, but it will not heal the underlying fire that propelled this. I’m writing this on Monday, just before Trump and other senior Republican leaders take to the stage at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, and just over six weeks before Biden heads to Chicago for the Democratic National Convention. The United States, today, is at a crossroads.
Destined to either anarchic dysfunction, and unending violence, or a dramatic return to civility and order. I hope that our leaders will choose the latter—but I fear they won’t. I fear Trump’s first words to the uneased crowd after being shot, the word “fight,” will, like many of his expressions, be heard as a war cry by the extreme. Political violence has become all too familiar in the last few years. Congressmen shot, death threats toward election administrators, foiled kidnapping plots against a Governor, a break-in at the Speaker of the House’s private home, and a savagely violent assault on our capital. It’s horrifying, but like the shooting itself, political violence normally targeting leadership almost always hurts innocent bystanders the most.
The latest window into Trump’s mindset following this unbelievable series of events, as of Monday, is the Former President’s first interview since the attempt on his life with Washington Examiner reporter Selina Zito. Zito told CNN that Trump was set to deliver a speech “that was going to be a real humdinger,” likely to be bitter and abrasive, but that “everything changed in that moment,” and that his speech was now to be focused on “bringing the country back together.” This, if Trump lives up to it, would be glorious.
Anyone who knows me, knows I haven’t always been fond of the Former President. But, my goodness, the image of Trump defying Secret Service attempts at pushing him down, instead standing tall and unfazed, “fist-pumping his way through an attempted murder,” with blood on his face, a vibrant American flag waving behind him, against a clear blue sky, all while the crowds chant “USA, USA,” even to the most impersonal, should provoke some unbidden sense of nationalist excitement as it did in me. As one writer for The Atlantic wrote, “What encapsulates our American ideal more than bloody defiance and stubborn pride that teeters just on the edge of foolishness?”
This image, if displayed alongside a Trump, unchanged in policy positions, reformed in rhetoric—will without any doubt, push Donald Trump to become this country’s next President. n
