At 6:10 p.m. July 13, former President Donald Trump was shot at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and that is a particular series of words I never thought I’d type and publish. The assassination attempt was unsuccessful, yes — the candidate made it out with only a minor wound on his right ear, a fate not shared with attendee Corey Comperatore, who died — but it’s impossible to overstate exactly how close we came to watching Trump drop dead. The video says it all: had Trump not moved his head slightly to the right only a second before the first POP, he almost certainly would not have lived.
It’s pointless to spend much time attempting to predict what’s going to happen next. In the span of writing this column, President Joe Biden has tested positive for COVID-19, reaffirmed his intent to stay in the electoral race and, as of July 21, dropped out of the race entirely. The future is, unfortunately, totally uncertain. What is certain, however, is this: what happened at Trump’s rally did not happen in a vacuum. It’s the sort of violence that signifies a failing republic, the sort that demonstrates an increasing alienation and disaffection among people who, presumably, feel there’s few other options.
Politicians from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders to Indiana Congressman Jim Banks have condemned the shooting. A whole set of world leaders, like Chinese President Xi Jinping and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have, as well. It’s important to condemn any assassination attempt on any presidential candidate, but it’s more important to not lose sight of one thing: political violence is not at all uncommon in America. It defines much of our daily lives and certainly our political processes. Biden, in condemning the attempt, said it was “contrary to everything we stand for as a nation.” This is idealist thinking, removed from the reality of our history and our current maladies.
We witness political violence constantly in this nation. We are that failing republic. There has been, and will continue to be, talk of unity among the parties considering this moment, but now, just as ever, is the time to point out our country’s structural contradictions.
Is it not contradictory that Biden has so quickly condemned the violence against Trump when he has been complicit in the deaths of at least 37,000 Palestinians? It’s hypocritical that he’d take this moment to preach a gospel of peace and understanding when, in May, when the International Criminal Court claimed that the Israeli leadership is guilty of war crimes, he made a point to condemn any such assertion. The ICC again ruled July 21 that Israel’s presence in Palestine is illegal and is considering a case brought forth by South Africa that the country is committing a genocide. Biden, on the other hand, has sent Israel billions of dollars in aid, only abetting its war machine.
Don’t forget either that this is the same president who, in 2022, presented a plan to increase police funding to put 100,000 additional officers on the streets. Police violence is political violence. In the U.S., more than 600 people are killed by law enforcement every year, and an estimated 250,000 people are injured. According to the Department of Justice, around 10,000 pet dogs are killed by police every year. Both candidates have espoused extremely pro-police messaging, and yet now it’s appropriate to decry political violence?
Will President Biden publicly condemn the police violence against peaceful student protesters that occurred over this past semester, including here at IU? If violence is so vehemently un-American, there’s no room for the state to enact it wantonly, either.
The moment Trump was shot, he was talking about his favorite topic: illegal immigration. The Republican Party recently unveiled its 2024 platform, and the second item on the agenda (after stopping the so-called “migrant invasion”) is to “carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.” Trump has promised on the campaign trail that he’d send thousands of troops to the southern border to stop this “invasion.” Even Biden, recently, has pulled from Trump’s playbook in all but closing the border to asylum seekers, a move the American Civil Liberties Union has called “illegal.” The president isn’t so far from his opposition when it comes to this sort of state violence — he’s just nicer about the way he says it.
Political violence permeates every aspect of our lives. In Indianapolis alone, landlords have filed over 2,000 eviction notices in the past month. That’s political violence.
In Flint, Michigan, resident activists have been fighting for the past 10 years to replace all of the city’s contaminated service lines so they can trust their own tap water. That’s political violence.
Dozens of superfund sites — or sites denoted by the Environmental Protection Agency as being a top cleanup priority due to their immense health risk — remain in Indiana, including one in my hometown of Terre Haute. That’s political violence.
Bloomington has a poverty rate of about 34.3%, making it the poorest city in Indiana. It’s unclear whether these statistics include student residents, many of whom might qualify as being below the poverty line. But, as Jeremy Hogan of the Bloomingtonian notes, the city is “already known” as a place where high-paying jobs are scarce, and housing prices continue to rise. Every day, I walk past People’s Park and see people experiencing homelessness sleeping in makeshift tents. The Bloomington government’s response to these people is to send police officers to clear out their encampments because they’re more worried about the city’s aesthetics than the wellbeing of its population. That’s political violence.
We live in a system, economically and socially, that is perfectly designed for violence to fester. Politicians who are quick to condemn the assassination attempt on the former president but promote systemic violence against the working class, and are apathetic toward global marginalized communities, are concerned only with the wellbeing of their own cadre of elites. Violence is far from un-American. In fact, it defines our country. And that will not change until we resoundingly reject the normalization of it in all its forms.
Joey Sills (he/him) is a senior studying English and political science.
