The reactions to the killings of Melissa Hortman and Charlie Kirk are worlds apart. When Hortman was gunned down at her Minnesota home, the response on the political right was to taunt. The president participated in this taunting by publicly humiliated Governor Wall, refusing even to call him. When Kirk was gunned down at a public event at a university in Utah the other day, the response on the political right was rage. Why the difference if the principle is the same? I have not tracked the response of the left by members of congress or ex-presidents, but I kind of doubt the posts were mocking or provocative or taunting.
Let me begin my short discourse on political violence in America with the proposition that assassination is not the solution to any problem, in particular, resolving cultural, moral, political, and social differences in a deeply divided country like ours. Not ever acceptable.
Historically in America, political violence has ebbed and flowed like the tide, as tensions within American society rise and fall. Traditionally in our country, assassinations of political leaders have had a multitude of triggers and drives. Mostly lone wolves swallowed up by a mental health crisis. It appears, however, that a new drive and trigger have been introduced to the political violence equation: Social Media.
Being president of this country comes with a high mortality rate. A remarkable 9 percent of our presidents have been killed in office.
The first attempted assassination of a U.S. president was in 1835. Richard Lawrence, an unemployed house painter who had emigrated from England, attempted to shoot President Andrew Jackson while Jackson was walking the through the capitol rotunda after a funeral. Lawrence tried to shoot him with two pistols. Both misfired. Jackson, so the story goes, thumped Lawerence with his cane.
Lawerence was charged with attempted murder and plead not guilty by reason of insanity. The District of Columbia’s prosecutor, Francis Scott Key of Star-Spangled Banner fame, accepted the novel plea. Lawrence spent the remainder of his life in a mental institute, now known as Saint Elizabeths.
We all can recall from our history books the assassination of President Lincoln in 1865 at Ford’s Theater, but many don’t know about presidents Garfield’s or McKinley’s assassinations.
President Garfield was shot at the now demolished Baltimore and Potomac Railroad station in Washington DC in July 1881, by a stalker whose life had imploded, Charles Guiteau. Garfield died two months later of his wounds.
The 20th century brought more assassination attempts of presidents, two successful. In 1901, at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, NY, President McKinley was shot at a reception in the Temple of Music while shaking hands by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. He eventually died of his wound’s days later. Teddy Roosevelt assumed the office of President.
In 1912, former president Teddy Roosevelt, who was campaigning for president as head of the Bull Moose Party, was shot in the chest while exiting a restaurant on his way to give a campaign speech. The bullet’s impact was reduced and deflected by a copy of his folded speech he was to give. Bloodied, he gave the speech that same evening. While visiting Miami, Florida, in 1933, an attempt was made on President-elect Franklin Roosevelt’s life by Giuseppe Zangara. The assassin fired five bullets, missing Roosevelt, hitting and killing Chicago’s mayor Anton Cermak and wounding four others instead.
The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, that killed 4 young girls on September 15, 1963, marked the start of a decade of assassination, political violence, and turbulence. Weeks following the bombing, in Dallas, Texas, President Kennedy’s was assassinated by Harvey Lee Oswald. The list of those gunned down in that decade is long: John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr, Malcom X, Medgar Evans. These names come to mind almost immediately, but the list also can and should include the disappearance and murder of many civil rights workers and activists.
President Gerald Ford, in his brief tenure as president, was the target of two unsuccessful assassination attempts. Ronald Reagan survived the attempt on his life in 1981 because in the confusion and chaos of the shooting the Secret Service brought Reagan to George Washington University Hospital vice the designated hospital in Maryland. He most likely would have bleed to death if they had taken a longer route to the pre-planned hospital.
What can we learn from this long sad list of killings and attempted killings?
The vast majority were lone wolves. Guns have been the preferred means for killing and attacking our presidents. A mix of pistols and rifles. An odd blend of motives and triggers, however. The motives ranged from psychosis; personal or political vendetta; to the unknown. Triggers include mental health crises (Lawrence, Guiteau, Zangara, Hinkley, Oswald?); the Civil War (Booth); anarchist movement (Czolgosz); right-wing backlash to the civil rights movement and left-wing backlash to the Vietnam War (various).
Events show that mental health crises triggered most of the assassinations of high level political figures in the United States. Social tensions, a leading cause of the political violence and turbulence in the 1960s.
The lone wolf model continues. The recent attempts on Donald Trump (twice); the attack on Speaker of House Nancy Pelosis’ husband; the assassination of Minnesota’s Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark and the attempt on another lawmaker; Unitedhealthcare CEO Brian Thompson; and now Charlie Kirk, seem driven by a mix of mental health crises, personal vendettas, and social media attention seeking. All suffused at some level by a social media ecosystem of conspiracy theories that fuels hate, fear, and rage. Never a good combination.
The possible motive and trigger for the Kirk killing are only being uncovered following the alleged killer’s arrest. Speculation would be unwise and unhelpful still at this point.
It appears, nonetheless, that social media plays an important role in the actions of some of these previous shootings or attacks. The proliferation of conspiracy theories, I argue, in tandem with reckless social media posts by our leaders and right-wing news media (and yes some of those on the left), are the primary driver of political violence in America today. We have always had fringe politics in America, but it is now mainstream in one party.
We can see the social media frenzy at work in the aftermath of the most recent shooting. The previous posts of violent memes and vitriolic taunting – such as Senator Mike Lee of Utah posts following the killings of Hortman and her husband – do not help, but create an environment of fear, hate, and vengeance. An endless cycle of violence driven by violent rhetoric and conspiracy theories.
Trump’s unhelpful comments of “beating the hell out of” liberals, or in his words “radical left lunatics,” following Kirk’s killing does not help, but only perpetuates and accelerates the feedback loop of violence. If this trend continues, expect more such acts of violence sparked, sadly, by our own president and right-wing media outlets. Yes, I am pointing the finger mostly at the right, the extreme left needs to watch their words as well.
According to multiple studies of Trump’s word choices, he has used the most violent rhetoric than any past presidential candidate, ever. Trump is the Right. One doesn’t need studies, however, when you hear, read, and see Trump’s almost daily spectacles of hate, fear mongering, and violent rhetoric, to conclude he is bad news. Violent language begets violence, and our country is reaping what Trump has sown.
Discover more from Bumpass Prose and Politics
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
