The boogeyman
This isn’t the column that I expected to write. I’ll save that one for later.
The shooting — Donald Trump was wounded during his campaign rally near Pittsburgh Saturday night. One of the darkest moments in a series of them in recent years.
It appears that Trump will recover. But one spectator died and two others were critically injured, according to the reports Saturday night. The suspected shooter was dead, too.
In the days to come, we will likely learn much more about the identity of the shooter and possibly his motivation. We will also learn more about the innocent bystanders.
The reaction — We already learned that in a shocking event like this one, the worst of politics gushed out. Some on social media claimed that the shooting was a hoax. Cheri Jacobus shared numerous post spreading those theories.
“They” tried to kill Trump, others alleged. Still others seemed to almost celebrate the physical threat on Trump’s life.
The rush to point blame, spread conspiracy theories disguised as facts and to use the incident to generalize a group of supporters as an enemy flooded “X” (the site formerly known as Twitter).
The media — Some media organizations and individual journalists who didn’t immediately declare what happened an assassination attempt or say that Trump was shot (there were also initial reports that shattered glass from the Teleprompters that Trump uses could have cut him rather than a bullet), were lambasted as biased. Perhaps what they were doing was reporting only what they could confirm, the responsible obligation in that moment.
But what do you expect with Saturday night’s responses?
This is the toxic atmosphere of politics. Campaigns are filled with explosive terms like “bullseye,” “crosshairs,” and politicians shooting or blowing up targets in ads.
The boogeyman — I remember former Iowa Congressman David Young telling me a few years ago while we talked at the Iowa State Fair that campaigns want a “boogeyman.” Instead of focusing on the characteristics of your candidate or the strengths and advantages of your policies and positions, you instead demonize a person, the opponent or a group to serve as the villain. Sometimes that boogeyman is the “they.” “THEY will stop at nothing to defeat us!”
(I wrote about that in my second book, “Caucus Chaos Trump.” You can get a copy on my website, Iowa retailers like Beaverdale Books, or Amazon.)
I don’t know of any other time during my career when this boogeyman scenario was as prevalent as it is now.
“The stakes could not be higher.” “This is the most important election of our lifetimes.”
Those were the lines that we reporters would chuckle about in the past, because we would hear those every election. But the rhetoric is much more dire and apocalyptic in this 2024 campaign.
You have one side claiming that their supporters must “Save America!” and to “Take Our Country Back!” You have the other side alleging the “threat to our democracy.”
If you mocked the brutal attack with a hammer of Paul Pelosi, the husband of former speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi, do you find it hypocritical that you now decry political violence?
Or when your side bludgeoned law enforcement because you believed lies that your candidate had actually won the election? When you are told to “fight like hell!”
Or when you claim that Trump got what he deserved because of his previous incendiary behavior?
The academic’s view — “If both sides are hammering into people again and again, then it’s not a surprise that eventually people are willing to take the law into their hands and to engage in violence,” Dr. Arie Perlinger, University of Massachusetts Lowell scholar who studies political violence and assassinations, told “The Conversation.
Confession: I hesitated in what to write in this column or whether to talk about what happened so quickly. I don’t think “hot takes” serve much value. And I never want this conversation to do that.
What happened Saturday in Pennsylvania was awful. It could have been even worse.
For the sake of our civil society, it could provide a moment for us to grieve with the suffering. We can take a breath, reflect and choose more carefully the words we use, the claims we make and the way we act about those who don’t see the world like we do.
I sure hope we do.
After what happened this weekend, what are you thinking?
I write this column as part of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. Phoebe Wall Howard is one of the newest contributors and among others in the Collaborative with former Des Moines Register roots. Phoebe brings deep insight into the automotive world and recently wrote about her first purchase of an EV. Check her out here.
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Thank you for your calm reaction. If only everyone could take a deep breath and do the same.
Thanks for this. I think we all need to just cool down and wait for all the facts. So many things were being thrown out during the night, it was hard to tell what was conjecture and what was fact.