View From the Legislature

In the hours after the shocking news of the assassination attempt on former U.S. President Donald Trump, there was a unified expression across party lines of gratefulness that Mr. Trump was not seriously injured, grief over the rally spectator who was killed (later identified as Corey Comperatore), and a strong resolve that political violence could not be tolerated. These sentiments came from all corners of the political spectrum including President Joe Biden, former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and Manitoba NDP Premier Wab Kinew.

It was encouraging to see such a unified denouncement of the violence as well as calls to try to lower the political temperature that is at a boiling point in the United States and other parts of the world.

While it has been decades since an assassination attempt on a current or former U.S. President, sadly, political violence is not new to the U.S. nor is it absent from recent memory. In fact, in places around the United States, there are remembrances of these tragic occurrences.

Having visited Dealey Plaza in Dallas Texas, now a historic district that marks the location that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, it has the feel of a time capsule where visitors come to see where history was changed. This same feeling came upon me as I was visiting Washington D.C. several years ago and happened upon a plaque outside the Washington Hilton hotel that designated the spot as a National Historic Place as it marked the location that President Ronald Reagan was shot in a failed assassination attempt in 1981.

These are just two locations of many where violent political acts happened that impacted U.S. and world history. And Saturday’s shooting added to that terrible history.

I don’t recall all of the aftermath of the Reagan assassination (and I wasn’t alive at the time of Kennedy’s death), but I suspect there were also calls at those times for the political temperature to be cooled and support across party lines. The times, and the history and motivation of the shooters were no doubt different but political division has run deep for a long time.

But it does seem at this time in history we are again on the sharp edge of a heightened division that is hard to know where it leads, but that the public generally isn’t optimistic about its outcome.

And so political leaders were again this week calling for cooler heads. It was expressed in different ways. Some were saying (correctly I would suggest) that political adversaries should not see each other as enemies. One lawmaker expressed it in this way, “We should be able to say what we mean, without being mean.”

The reality is that politics has always been a rough and tumble affair. But there seems to be a consensus that it has become in recent years more toxic than rough. Attacks are often more personal than policy based. Where there used to be room for asking, that is now replaced by anger.

The U.S. election, and the upcoming Canadian one for that matter, will present two very different visions for the future. Can they occur in a way that is vigorous and emotional without being vile and destructive? Ultimately that will largely be up to the participants, those whose names appear on the ballot. And there are people who come to mind, such as Senator John McCain, who tried to set such an example.

For today, a unified expression of gratitude that the assassination attempt failed, collective grief for the victim, and a common condemnation against the violence is a beginning. Hopefully it serves as a starting point and a reminder that politics, while often hot, doesn’t have to be at a constant boil.