Stopping political violence requires common decency

As investigators sort through what appears to be a second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump last weekend, partisans are predictably blaming each other for incendiary rhetoric and extremist politics. One thing that might ease the tension is for the two presidential candidates to keep doing what they’ve been doing in recent days: acting with relative civility.

Both Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden called Trump after the incident last Sunday, when Secret Service officers fired at an armed man near where Trump was golfing. Harris said she “checked on him to see if he was OK,” and Biden talked with his predecessor about the need for additional protections. (Trump, uncharacteristically, said the latter was “a very nice call.”)

At the risk of sounding naive, is it possible that such cordiality is becoming something of a trend in the 2024 campaign?

When Harris was introduced at the recent presidential debate, she didn’t walk to her lectern. She strode to the middle of the stage to greet Trump and shake his hand. To his credit, he obliged. The next morning, at the Sept. 11 commemoration in Manhattan, the two candidates shook hands again. There could’ve been no better occasion for it. The remembrance ceremony, while honoring those who were killed in the 2001 terrorist attacks, also evokes the spirit of national unity and civic fellowship that prevailed in the months that followed.

It’s unfortunate that simple expressions of good manners could be so noteworthy, but they’ve become all too rare in American politics. Partisan rhetoric has become routinely apocalyptic. Conspiracy theories are rampant. Much remains unknown about Ryan Routh, the alleged gunman who was arrested, but his social media postings suggest the kind of politically inflected paranoia that has become familiar in recent years.

That’s all the more reason for leaders of both parties to recommit themselves to common decency.

Harris struck the right note during the Sept. 10 debate. “I believe very strongly,” she said, “that the American people want a president who understands the importance of bringing us together, knowing we have so much more in common than what separates us. And I pledge to you to be a president for all Americans.”

Such words were once commonplace, indeed banal, among candidates for higher office. They now stand out amid the demagogic rancor.

A return to the language of civility, however cliched or effortful, might help remind Americans that a pluralistic democracy requires finding a way to live with those who disagree with you. It might remind politicians that there are more votes to be gained with an open hand than with a clenched fist. It’s also simply the right thing to do.

The investigation into this latest incident has only just begun, and there is still a lot to learn about Routh and his motivations. But stopping political violence will require more than vigilant law enforcement.

It will require leaders who have the courage to say, as President Abraham Lincoln did on the eve of the Civil War, that in American politics, opponents are friends — and “we must not be enemies.”

— Bloomberg Opinion