A Moment to Seek Our Better Angels

The moment was sickening; the act, despicable. A gunman apparently attempted to assassinate Donald Trump, thankfully failing by inches. But at least one spectator was killed at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and two others were critically injured. The suspected gunman, a 20-year-old Pennsylvania man identified by the FBI as Thomas Matthew Crooks, was shot and killed.

A tragic and horrifying afternoon could have been so much worse.

We don’t yet know whether the gunman was motivated by political hatred of the former president, a deranged desire for fame, or some other force. We have to await the results of the investigation.

But what happened yesterday was an assault on American democracy. The democratic order rests on treating those with whom we disagree as opponents rather than enemies, on the belief that we share not just a continent but a country. It means that we respect the outcome of elections and the will of the people, even when those outcomes are ones we profoundly disagree with. It means that even those with whom we fiercely disagree have the right to be heard, and to campaign, and to win.

“To give the victory to the right,” President Abraham Lincoln said, “not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary.” Yesterday afternoon, the bullet nearly won. If that had happened, it would have convulsed an already angry, even enraged, country. It’s hard enough to contain the demons that are lurking; a successful act of political violence would have summoned them from the vasty deep.

People who love America—especially its political leaders, but not them alone—must now, amid all the fury and distrust, resist the temptation to lash out, to provoke, to blame others, to settle scores. There’s been far too much of that already, even in the hours after the apparent attempted assassination of Trump. But there have also been gracious and healing words, including from his critics and his opponent, President Joe Biden.

A beautiful Hebrew word, shalom, refers to overcoming strife and social tension. But it means more than that. It implies harmony, wholeness, justice, and peace in the deepest sense. “Love and fidelity will meet,” we read in the Psalms; “righteousness and peace now embrace.”

I’m not naive enough to believe that a spirit of shalom will characterize politics in any era, let alone this one. But I believe that good men and women who revere this nation can, at certain key moments, strive to understand one another a little better, to resist the recriminations a little more successfully. We can even, in our best moments, see the humanity and dignity in those with whom we have fought pitched battles.

It’s certainly a struggle for me, and I’m sure it’s a struggle for a lot of you. And of course it may not happen. We may go in the other direction, and we may ultimately break apart. But nothing is fated, and none of us is required to imitate the worst among us. It’s possible to fight for justice without going to dark and dehumanizing places.

Lord Charnwood said of Lincoln, “This most unrelenting enemy to the project of the Confederacy was the one man who had quite purged his heart and mind from hatred or even anger towards his fellow-countrymen of the South.”

We can’t meet the standards of Lincoln, our greatest president. But from time to time, it’s worth reminding ourselves that they’re worth aspiring to. This is one of those times.