A Bleeding Ear, a Fist Pump, an Exit Post... and the Triumph of Populism
“I say violence is necessary. Violence is part of America’s culture. It is as American as cherry pie.” —H. Rap Brown (1967)
To paraphrase Lenin, there are years in politics when nothing happens. And then there are weeks when years happen. We’ve just lived through a few of those weeks—and they may not be over yet.
On June 27, most people tuned in to the Biden-Trump debate expecting to see something similar to the rancorous shouting match they may have recalled watching in 2020. Instead they saw Joe Biden struggle and often fail to put together a coherent train of thought, while Donald Trump stayed disciplined (meaning shutting up when it wasn’t his turn to speak) and kept on-message. For the next two weeks, Democratic leaders wrung their hands in distress, pondering whether or how they should persuade Biden to give up his nomination.
Then came the hail of bullets in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13 that came close to ending Trump’s life, but instead inspired the fist pump and the war whoop that gave Trump’s 2024 campaign its iconic moment.
Then came the four-day GOP nominating convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from which emerged a seemingly united and enthused MAGA leadership. With good reason. The polls were breaking in Trump’s direction.
But the story wasn’t over. On Sunday, another dam burst. President Biden, besieged by both his party’s leaders and the mainstream media, threw in the towel and announced (not in person, tellingly, but in a post on X) that he would “stand down.” There is no historical precedent for an incumbent president quitting the race so soon before the next election. Presumably, the selection of a new Democratic candidate will be decided by a vote among party delegates at their nominating convention in Chicago four weeks from now. But even this will turn heads, because it has been decades (before the introduction of the all-primary nominating system in the late-1960s) since these delegates have ever had to decide anything. Their presence is supposed to be only for show.
At this point, it seems a near-certainty that Vice President Kamala Harris will inherit the candidacy. (Futures markets are backing me up here!) She has the endorsement of President Biden, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and just about every Democratic governor, senator, and representative. She stands solidly with the progressive core of her party, which makes her an easy pick for delegates (who tend to be a bit left of the typical Democratic voter). Some say she already has endorsements from a majority of the delegates. A quick start will help her rev up party enthusiasm among core believers after Biden’s abrupt departure.
As for Team Trump, well, they say they’re locked and loaded for “Laughin’ Kamala.” But there was nothing humorous about the attack line suggested by senior Trump advisor Jason Miller a couple of weeks ago. “Joe Biden is known for weakness and incompetence, while Kamala Harris is known for weakness, incompetence and radical liberal ideology.” Nikki Haley blasted Harris from a different angle: “Let me remind you that Kamala had one job. And that one job was to fix the borders. Now imagine her in charge of the entire country!”
Harris and her team will no doubt return fire by hauling up all the heavy rhetorical howitzers that genteel Joe never thought to use. They won’t describe Trump’s America as a mere “threat to democracy.” They will paint it, in poignant and lurid detail, as a combination of 1984, Hunger Games, and The Handmaid’s Tale. And they will equate Trump himself with mobsters like Scarface. To get back into the race and overcome the Democrats’ current passion gap, they will call upon ordinary Americans to rouse themselves and their neighbors before censorship, civil-service purges, and jackboots descend across the land. I can already see the poster. It shows a closing dungeon door, with the message: Vote. You May Never Get Another Chance. Anything that raises adrenaline will be fair game—talk of breaking the glass, going to Defcon Five, alerting the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In the note that follows, I intend to discuss the big turning points of the last few weeks—namely, the Biden-Trump debate, the attempted assassination of Trump, and the Republican convention. Yet along the way I want to point out how mood and language of both violence and populism have begun to permeate our politics. As you will learn, there is a good reason for this. The historical track record shows that populism and violence each tends to justify the other. This track record also shows that, past a certain point, there is no going back. That is when the vulnerability and insecurity generated by an atmosphere of threatened violence pushes the public to favor more threatened violence in order to restore order.
There are indeed weeks when years happen. And we may be seeing more such weeks soon.
Growing Shadow of Violence: Who’s to Blame?
When I heard that a would-be assassin’s bullet came within maybe an inch or two of killing Donald Trump (Trump himself says “a quarter of an inch,” but who’s counting?), I thought back to how many close calls we’ve seen on the lives of American leaders over the past few years. There was the delusional attempt on the life of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. There were the uncovered plots to kill Supreme Court justices Brett Kavanaugh and Sonia Sotomayor—leading Sam Alito, at one point, to fear his own assassination. There was the rifleman who unloaded sixty rounds at a baseball field on which GOP congressmen and staff were practicing.
Senators and House members, now besieged by rants and threats (in letters, in email messages, and on social media), are spending vastly more than they used to on personal security, over and above what the Capitol Police can deliver. Of course, they have to worry; they’ve got the lives of their families on the line. Meanwhile, each time an attack happens, most Americans just breath a sigh of relief and figure, well, I guess we dodged another bullet. We must still be a divinely favored nation. Either that, or we’re just damned lucky—enjoying what Otto von Bismarck is said to have called God’s “special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.”
But with the recent shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, that complacency may be running dry. While there remain many older journalists who recall how the country came together after the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan in 1981 or the actual assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, few expect that to happen again in 2024. Instead, the shooting reminds most Americans that all the red-blue partisanship and polarization that they have tried not to think about since the last election is going to burst forcibly again into our lives over the next few months.
Attacks on national office-holders, after all, are just the tip of the iceberg. Bomb threats are now regularly forcing the evacuation or closure of state capitols. State judges report being doxed and “swatted.” Nearly one in five state and local elected officials say they have been threatened recently. Many more say they are insulted or harassed and that, as a result, they are considering stepping down.
The bullet that pierced Trump’s ear did not interrupt the growing specter of violence that now shadows American politics. It merely punctuated it. The Sunday NYT headline gets it about right: “An Assassination Attempt That Seems Likely to Tear America Further Apart.”