The danger of violent discourse

FOR several years, the world has been watching with dismay how the polarised American political system has been shattered – with violence, including bomb threats and attempted assassinations, becoming part of the scene.

At the centre of this fractured political landscape and its violent turmoil has been former president Donald Trump who is now running again for the office of the presidency – and who has become an apparent target of this political violence in the form of two assassination attempts.

Just on Sunday a week ago, a man made his way with a semiautomatic rifle to Trump’s Florida golf course with the intention of shooting him. He was thwarted only when a US Secret Service agent spotted him. 

In July, Trump was the target of another shooting at a political rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where a bullet struck his ear.

The former president has complained that the Democrats had made him a target by calling him a threat to democracy, and blamed them for creating a political environment that induces violence. “Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at,” he said.

But that sounds like the pot calling the kettle black, when it comes from Trump – who has long favoured the use of the language of violence in his public comments. He has encouraged supporters to beat up hecklers, threatened to shoot illegal immigrants, and suggested that Americans whom he deemed disloyal should be executed. He refers to his political rivals as communists and accuses them of trying to destroy the country.

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Just a few days before the incident in his golf club, Trump had vilified immigrants during a presidential debate on national television with false stories about Haitian migrants eating pet dogs and cats in an Ohio town. That rhetoric in turn had led to threats to blow up schools, City Hall and other public buildings.

And let us not forget that his speech to supporters on Jan 6, 2021 is said to be responsible for the subsequent ransacking of the Capitol. He even suggested then that the mob might be right to want to hang his vice-president. He has since embraced the attackers as “patriots” that may be pardoned if he is elected again.

Violence may also have been stirred by rhetoric from the left who have compared Trump to Hitler, and who have, indeed, depicted him as a mortal threat to democracy, called him a fascist and accused him of collaborating with Russian President Vladimir Putin against American interests.

But then the former president is not an innocent victim. He knows how to ignite violent American emotions, setting a mob on the path. But the minute he opens Pandora’s Box, he should not be surprised if the passion that inspires his followers may motivate his political enemies – including the crazy ones. 

Indeed, those who play around with the rages of a divided nation where there are millions of assault rifles in closets and lockers across the country and that has a history of violence can end up finding themselves endangered by their own reckless rhetoric.