Governing magazine places this morning’s attack on Republican congressmen in the context of a series of violent episodes that are shaking our political system with increasing intensity.
Wednesday’s shooting is merely the latest indication that violence appears to be creeping closer to the center of American politics. On the eve of winning a special congressional election in Montana, Greg Gianforte pummeled a reporter. Not long after, a congressional candidate in Iowa announced she was dropping her bid, in part due to death threats. In Texas, a group of legislators got into a heated argument over a bill to ban sanctuary city policies. They’ve been arguing ever since about which of them threatened another with death, including an alleged suggestion that one lawmaker deserved a bullet in his head.
To this one could add the murders of two Good Samaritans coming to the aid of Muslims on a train in Portland last month, and the violent left-wing protests and attacks on speakers at Berkeley and Middlebury. But today’s ambush of a group of elected officials with a semi-automatic rifle, apparently motivated by partisan hatred, cuts closer to the heart of our political system than any of the other episodes of recent months.
This trend is deeply worrisome—not only because of the innocent people harmed but because of what it says about the health of our political system. The essence of state-building is the process of controlling violence—taking it out of the hands of private individuals and clans and militias and subordinating it to legitimate institutions that are accountable to the rule of law. Politics can often seem trite or maddening or absurd, but it is at its core the best tool that human beings have developed to reduce the rate at which they kill each other over values and resources. When that process is short-circuited through murder, it is a sign of political decay—a step backward away from a modern state and toward a state of nature. Eruptions of violence are a sign that the skin of the body politic is getting thinner, exposing the sinews beneath the surface.
There is a temptation after violent episodes like these to tar our political opponents by association. This itself is also a part of our political degeneration—another step in the process of turning violence into a political tool. We should resist the urge. While it may be cathartic for partisans (especially Republicans, who infer, accurately, that they are subject to a brutal double standards when it comes to these sorts of events) blaming and finger-pointing after lone-wolf attacks will only accelerate the political pollution that drives marginal people to bypass our conflict-defusing institutions and rely on force to advance their political ends.
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