Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
I woke up Sunday morning, like I am sure you all did, attempting to process Saturday's assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
In my role as co-publisher of The Fulcrum I immediately started thinking about how we should respond and started to write a column with my thoughts. But first I needed to figure out my approach.
- Should the writing be the typical column about the need for our country to lower the inflammatory rhetoric and bridge the divide?
- Should the writing be about how the event might change the nature of the upcoming presidential race and, if so, how?
- Should the writing be a discussion of the moral equivalency or lack thereof between Trump's inflammatory language about immigrants being hoodlums and dangerous and the language used by those who believe Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must not be reelected, more words that might incite violence?
With those and many more thoughts crossing my mind, I decided to pause and write to about 30 Fulcrum contributors.
I want The Fulcrum response to be different. I want our responses to fit in with our mission of asking:
- What's dividing us on this issue?
- What is oversimplified about this issue?
- What are the nuances and complexities of this issue?
- Is there any part of the other side's position that makes sense to you?
- What do you want the other side to understand about you, and what do you want to understand about the other side?
- What's the question nobody's asking?
More than anything I want The Fulcrum to be part of a solution that brings our country together.
Following are some responses I received.
National Task Force on Election Crises
The National Task Force on Election Crises unequivocally condemns the attack that injured former President Trump, which took place as a crowd of his supporters were exercising their freedom of peaceful political assembly. Our thoughts are with the former President, as well as with the other innocent victims of this horrific act of violence. There is no place for violence in American politics.
Hugo Balta, publisher of the Latino News Network
Like you, I’ve struggled personally to grasp the enormity of what has happened and have engaged in conversations and debates that range from politics to gun control to a culture of violence that seems to have reached the boiling poimnt (and is overflowing).
I am concerned that we are on the fast lane towards something worse that goes beyond the November election.
My position now as it has been all along is that mainstream media does more harm than good. It continues to fan the flames of divide instead of providing a platform for discussion and debate (especially debate because it is in our differences, in what makes people uncomfortable … that’s where new ideas are born and innovation lives). We must learn to be comfortable at being uncomfortable.
And that’s what I think our country needs and the opportunity The Fulcrum has in front of it … to be the counterculture of a news media that has long ago lost its way to appease its sponsors. And with it, their political bias.
Amy Lockard, author and journalist
Decency: No law reaches it, but all right-minded people observe it. (Chamfort)
With our presidential choices teetering between The Despot and The Doddering, shots ring out at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa.
Ex-President, and presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump is injured. Another man is dead, two others critically injured. Trump raises a defiant fist as the Secret Service bustles him to safety.
The country is shaken; the world horrified. Yet again.
The ironies of this shooting abound, but that is not the matter in question.
Politics, religion, emotions, all else aside, there is only one road, ever, to take.
That is the high road.
And decency is demanded of all who travel it.
Charles Savenor, rabbi and executive director of Civic Spirit
The assassination attempt on Trump backfired because it reminds us not only about our shared humanity, but also the futility of silencing ideas and opinions. Gun violence sadly represents a symptom and illness plaguing our nation. Agreeing with elected officials is not the goal, rather it’s creating safe and constructive forums for us to listen, disagree, debate and dream.
Political dialogue needs to be reimagined away from a zero sum game to an opportunity to identify areas in which we can work together towards a productive civil society that is the cornerstone of an America in which we can take pride.
Two years ago I was at Chautauqua when Salmon Rushdie was attacked, and similar feelings of dread washed over my soul about the state of the freedom of speech and civil dialogue. And yet, I still harbor a deep conviction that we — our country and humanity itself — are better than this. And we owe it to our children to leave them a country committed in word and in deed to creating a more perfect union.
David Toscano, a former Democratic leader in the Virginia House of Delegates
Many commentators are suggesting that this event creates problems for the Biden campaign. The discovery that a 20-year-old registered Republican shot with an AR-15 lessens those problems. But Biden could nonetheless commit to reexamining his own rhetoric. He should never refer rhetorically to putting Trump in the “crosshairs” or “bullseye.”
Trump also faces a huge challenge. Will he examine his own language and commit publicly to lessen the vitriol? This would be a great opportunity for him politically to commit to a different kind of rhetoric — and it would put Biden in a more difficult position. To do so publicly would change the election process dramatically.
Similarly, Biden could give a speech with examples of his own, and commit to eliminate similar rhetoric. I don’t think Trump would ever do it and doubt Biden would either, but politics is full of twists and turns.
Lynn Schmidt, syndicated columnist and editorial board member with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
I have been thinking about the incentive structures surrounding our elected officials with my state's two senators on my mind. Instead of turning the temperature down, they have used this tragic situation to rile things up by blaming President Biden and the media, making things worse. I believe that a majority of Americans do not want to live like this but until we change our primary election system and enact reforms, the politicians who inflame our current political situation will face no consequences.
Scott Klug, podcast host and former member of the House of Representative
Visit the Kennedy museum in Dallas and you’ll find an entire wing focused on conspiracy theories. Sixty years later new theories still get published.
Is anyone surprised that within minutes of the Trump shooting the extremes pointed fingers at each other? Trump haters said it was a false flag operation to ramp up sympathy for the former president. Shadow of Ezra, an anonymous conspiracy theorist account on X, wrote that “The Deep State tried to assassinate Donald Trump live on television.”
Those of us disgusted with current American politics, those of us who are political orphans, need to remind friends and family that the shooting in Pennsylvania is the predictable outcome of the bile in today’s political incivility. We have to stop it.
