By John Archibald
This is not normal. It is not ok.
Saturday night, before the world even knew who the shooter at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner might have been, who his target was or if anyone had been hurt, liberals began to question whether the whole thing was a fake. Conservatives hopped in for their own political gain, as if the shooting at a hotel proved that the White House needed a giant ballroom. Pundits examined the facial expressions of those in attendance not only to decide whether they were surprised or frightened by the gunshots, but to judge how they treated their dates or spouses, to confirm their own worst suspicions about those they despised the most.
We are not OK. As a country. As a people. As a civilization. This is not sustainable.
Political violence is a cancer on the republic. In a functioning democracy, in a salvageable society, such a night would be condemned across party lines, across geographies and ideologies, and all the other stupid ways we divide ourselves. With all the important things we disagree about, this should unite us.
But it doesn’t. Because our gatekeepers are gone, our filters are gone, or so clogged with AI slop and internet muck that they have ceased to function. We ought to stand together in sadness for our very way of life and say, “This is wrong. This is unacceptable.†But we — me, friends, families, the country, the world — are tied like junkies to the drama, numbed to our own helplessness. We can tsk-tsk-tsk all these things and change nothing, because even as we tsk them, a lot of us are searching for ways to discredit the “enemy,†to confirm our own beliefs, to blame the other side.
It¶¶Òõap like America needs a remedial course in morality.
Assassins are bad. Attempted assassinations are bad. Period.
It¶¶Òõap like America needs a remedial course in strategy.
No one ever changed anybody’s mind by calling them idiots, punching them in the face or pointing a gun at them. Assassination inevitably accomplishes exactly the opposite of what the assassin envisions. Abe Lincoln is probably our most beloved president, with his face on one of the best bills. Martin Luther King has a street in every major city and a national holiday. Charlie Kirk has been elevated in death to audiences he never would have reached in life.
There is a reason King and Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth brought civil rights protests to Birmingham in 1963. They knew Police Commissioner Bull Connor would respond with the kind of force that would open the eyes of the world.
There is a reason they met in churches to teach marchers the critical importance of non-violence, to make sure protestors carried no weapons. Because a single act of violence would threaten the entire cause. In the words of King, “Violence never brings permanent peace.â€
America needs a remedial course in history.
When we accept horrors as inevitable, or routine, or run-of-the-mill, we allow them to become just that. We let the fuse burn on something that will certainly explode.
Bombings were so common in my hometown of Birmingham in the 1950s and ‘60s that nobody really has a solid count of how many there were. There were at least 50, but there is evidence that there were more. Police did not prioritize them, the newspapers sometimes joked about them, nobody prosecuted them, few people talked about them and most people don’t remember them at all. Except the big one at the end of that fuse that got everyone’s attention. Four little girls had to die in a church on a September Sunday morning to make them see.
We should know from that era — and plenty of others — that when political leaders spew the rhetoric of hate, things blow up. We have come not just to tolerate those words, but reward them from local races all the way up to the White House. And feign shock or join in when things go to hell.
We accept hateful words as the way things are, school shootings as regrettable, political violence as inevitable, and that is not OK.
None of these things is OK.
What is the answer? I don’t know. Put down your phone? Think before you speak or post? Keep an eye on your children and your parents? Talk to them about history, and strategy, and responsibility? Hold accountable the politicians who put targets on the backs of whole groups of people? Speak out? Vote? Remember who you are, and who you want to be? Speak your mind, but appreciate the value of disagreement? Remember the aspirations for a country where all would be free to believe as they choose, to pursue happiness in their own way?
I don’t know. But we are not OK. And if we don’t acknowledge it now, if we do not act now, the fuse will just continue to burn and it will shame us all.
John Archibald is an opinion writer for AL.com.Â
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