Editorial: America is teetering. We must climb out of our silos, before it's too late

Suddenly, America is at another dangerous crossroads.

The assassination attempt on Saturday against former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, has thrust the country into a potentially perilous spiral.

In perhaps the most consequential presidential election in modern history, in a deeply divided country where political rhetoric condoning or encouraging violence has become almost routine, a 20-year-old white man from rural Pennsylvania climbed onto a rooftop with an assault rifle. He fired several rounds, striking Trump on the ear, killing one attendee and gravely injuring two others before being gunned down by a Secret Service sniper.

In a country with more guns than people, with a penchant for high-capacity assault weapons that have no other purpose than to kill other human beings, where accessibility to those guns is deemed more important than the lives of everyday citizens, even small schoolchildren — somehow we’re more obsessed with the shooter’s “motive” than the real reason why a former president and major-party presidential candidate was merely inches away from being assassinated, via livestream.

Such misdirection is tragic. Whatever the motive, political violence of any kind is irrational, antithetical to the Constitution and American democracy. Those blaming the left for political histrionics over a second Trump presidency, or those who see Trump getting shot as self-inflicted comeuppance, are setting the country on a path to more violence.

Unfortunately, this isn’t some new path we’ve stumbled onto.

Our country has been careening toward political violence for some time now. America has a long history of differences being settled with gunpowder: Presidents Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were all targets of assassination attempts — some successful, some not.

Former Democratic Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot in the head in 2011 at a campaign event in Tucson, where 18 were shot and six killed, including her congressional aide, Gabe Zimmerman. She miraculously survived and is now a staunch gun control advocate.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana, was shot in the hip during a congressional baseball practice in 2017. The shooting left Scalise in a coma for three days; four others were injured, including members of Scalise’s security detail.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was the target of an elaborate kidnapping scheme in 2020 that was ultimately foiled by the FBI, which arrested 13 people allegedly involved in the plot.

There was, of course, the infamous assault on the nation’s Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, that left seven dead and 140 injured. Twenty-two months later: the October 2022 attack on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband in San Francisco.

Thankfully, President Joe Biden, along with Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress and across the country, are calling on Americans to lower the temperature in our political discourse. With the Republican National Convention kicking off Monday, it’s imperative that our elected leaders treat the assassination attempt for the existential threat that it is.

“There is no place in America for this kind of violence, for any violence, ever. Period. No exceptions. We can’t allow this violence to become normalized,” Biden said during an address from the Oval Office on Sunday night. “The political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated. It’s time to cool it down. We all have a responsibility to do that.”

So far, Trump hasn’t fanned the flames. He showed rare restraint on Sunday, posting on his social media platform, Truth Social, that “nothing is known at this time about the shooter. … 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.”

Trump also reportedly rewrote his nomination acceptance speech, planned for later this week in Milwaukee, to focus on unity. The new speech, he told the Washington Examiner, is “a chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world, together.”

Trump’s words will carry enormous weight going forward, especially with several prominent Republicans already blaming Democrats, even Biden himself, for the assassination attempt. “The Republican District Attorney in Butler County, PA, should immediately file charges against Joseph R. Biden for inciting an assassination,” U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, R-Georgia, posted on X.

For now, the voices calling for lowering the temperature far outweigh those pouring gasoline on the fire. House Speaker Mike Johnson, speaking on NBC’s “Today” show Sunday morning, implored Americans to “turn the rhetoric down. We’re all Americans, and we have to treat one another with dignity and respect.”

In the current cauldron of poisonous partisanship and overheated politics, it’s encouraging that political leaders on both sides of the aisle are calling for restraint.

But there is absolutely nothing in our recent history to suggest this restraint will last. The real test will come in the weeks and months ahead. America is teetering dangerously close to an explosion of political violence. Once the fuse is lit, there’s no turning back.

Our elected leaders can’t fix this. Restoring the republic will require genuine, civil discourse among voters of different political persuasions, ideologies, ethnicities and religious beliefs. We must find a way to climb out of our silos and engage with those who disagree with us.

We’re past the point of blaming parties and politicians. No one is coming to save America.

The onus is on us.