Assassination attempt Vol. 2: How we're all to blame
We call ourselves the world's greatest country, but we are poor stewards
Votes. Not bullets.
This should not require repetition, but in these strange and dangerous times, this needs emphasis: The fate of American politicians is decided at the ballot box, not by rounds fired from a rifle.
Twice in two months, two different people tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump.
The first shooter fired from a rooftop 164 yards of Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania. That shooter's bullet knicked Trump's ear. The shot came about 2 two inches from killing Trump and sending the nation into political chaos from which I am not sure it could have recovered.
Sunday, a second shooter fired on Trump from the bushes at one of Trump's Florida golf courses from between 500 and 600 feet.
The first shooter was killed by the Secret Service. His motivation and political leanings were unclear.
Sunday's shooter was captured. Early reports suggest Sunday's would-be assassin seems to have been a Trump supporter and then drifted toward support of President Joe Biden and Democrats.
This level of political violence is beyond my experience.
I was not born yet when assassins murdered Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.
I was a baby when two separate women tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford in September 1975, once in Sacramento and later that month in San Francisco.
I remember President Ronald Reagan being shot by a man convinced killing the president would impress actress Jody Foster.
But two attempts on the Republican nominee in two months?
This is beyond my capacity to understand.
In the Sept. 10 debate, Trump claimed that the rhetoric of his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, led to him being shot and wounded in Pennsylvania.
Trump knows what he's talking about. His rhetoric inspired as many as 2,500 people to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2020, in an attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power based on his own lies about mass voter fraud.
No, Trump supporters, I'm not blaming the victim.
However vile and repugnant I find Trump to be as a person, however damaging to our democracy as I measure his presidency and his rhetoric, I do not believe he should be murdered.
The fate of Trump's candidacy and ideology must be decided by voters.
These are grave and terrible times for our country.
We have more ways to communicate and share information with one another than at any point in human history.
These powerful tools could have united us and given us a forum with which to seek and produce solutions to the problems that humanity faces.
Instead, we have turned them into a massive hate machine in which lies and truth are mixed into an indigestible cocktail of constant rage and anguish.
This is not sustainable.
We can't keep going on like this.
We have to find a way to express our differences and live together.
These assassination attempts are the fault of the individuals who put their fingers on the triggers.
But the conditions that produced them cannot be ascribed simply to political animosity or the lies and hate spewed on social media or the anxiety and fear machine that is our mass media.
The state of the nation reflects us — all of us. Liberals. Conservatives. Rural. Urban. Rich. Poor.
We call ourselves the world's greatest country, but we are lazy and selfish in its maintenance. We long ago chose being entertained over being informed.
And somehow, being entertained evolved from "The Andy Griffith Show" to watching political demagogues rant and rave for hours on cable TV and the internet.
As the band Buffalo Springfield sang, "Nobody's right if everybody's wrong."
I want to believe our nation is stronger than the events of the last two months or even the last nine years.
Yet, one thought plays on repeat in my mind and haunts me in my bones and blood: This is all going to end badly.
Daniel P. Finney is a member of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. Please visit their page to view a full roster of writers and consider subscribing to their columns. Writing is hard work; people ought to get paid for it. If you enjoy it, throw them a couple of bucks. They earned it.
Okay, this will sound like a conspiracy but does anyone else think the Heritage Foundation could have a hand in this? Mr. Trump denys knowing anything about their Project 2025 even though his Veep choice, Mr. Vance, helped author it. When Mr. Trump held a huge lead, their was no problem; only after Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Ms. Harris did his ranking begin to slide. It rose a bit after the first assassination attempt but began to slide again as his cognitive skills began to fall. Now comes attempt #2. Both would be assasins are MAGA believers, which causes one to wonder 'why'? It's been my feeling that Mr. Trump's choice of running mate defied logic as four years ago Mr. Vance was saying terrible things about the former President. Could it be Heritage is using Trump to gain the White House, having him die in office opening the way for Vance and since his cognitive decline may cost him the office, eliminate him now? Well, that's just my thoughts and, as they say YMMV.
Thank you, Daniel. Yes, we must work harder to define who we are and what is important to us as a country. Hopefully, that definition and purpose of, and for, our country will become clear at the ballot box this fall. Hopefully we will choose to move beyond the hate.