Political Violence is Back, and Reparations are Here

While unrelated, two things we hoped would never happen are here and may worsen.

Political violence has always been with us, but it seems to be on the upswing.

You don’t have to be a history student or very old to have seen or been exposed to political violence. January 6, 2021 at the US Capitol is one of our most recent experiences. The George Floyd death-inspired Antifa and Black Lives Matter riots in more than 200 American towns and cities during the summer of 2020 are another, which resulted in actual deaths and over $2 billion in property damage, especially in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The US Capitol building has seen plenty of political violence, including two bombings, an attempted assassination of President Andrew Jackson, a Democratic congressman caning a Republican US Senator, Puerto Rican nationalists opening fire on the House chamber, and more. The J6 riot was just the latest, although it involved way more people.

Some violent events weren’t done for political reasons, but involved clearly mentally ill people with no known agenda. Randall Weston busted into the Carriage entrance to the Capitol in 1997 before being critically shot outside then-Republican House Whip Tom DeLay’s office. He was found innocent of killing two US Capitol policeman, Jacob Chestnut and John Gibson, by reason of insanity.

The same is true of the lunatic who, in 2011, shot then-US Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) in a grocery store parking lot. Efforts to politicize it by partisan Democrats - citing a fundraising appeal from a political action committee run by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin that featured stylized crosshairs on an electoral map that included Giffords. The shooter Jared Lee Loughner, was found incompetent to stand trial due to paranoid schizophrenia and likely didn’t know the difference between Palin and a Moose. Too many people rush to partisan conclusions, not wanting to let a crisis go to waste. Meanwhile, our mental health crisis continues to worsen.

First responders at the shopping center in Tucson in 2011 where a deranged gunman shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed six others. He’s serving life in prison.

Assassination attempts on presidents and presidential candidates had all but disappeared from the scene, at least at the presidential level in the United States, since two attempts on President Gerald Ford’s life 49 years ago. By women, nonetheless, in the same month (September 5th and again on the 22nd) and state (California). But 2024 will be remembered, among other things, for another pair of assassination attempts on a major party presidential candidate. So far.

The assassination attempts on Ford, not unlike the two on Donald Trump, didn’t have much political impact, although the media handled them very, very differently. Ford, who narrowly lost the 1976 election to Jimmy Carter, wasn’t blamed for the attempts on him, which followed years of political scandal and unrest, from the end of the Vietnam War to Watergate and Richard Nixon’s resignation and pardon. We’ve seen no less unrest and scandal but very different kinds for much of the past decade, from the mismanagement and malevolence of COVID-19 to the brazen politicization of our law enforcement, judicial, and intelligence systems.

The media has bent over backward to blame the assassination attempts against Donald Trump on him for his rhetorical excesses. Meanwhile, this type of rhetoric is largely ignored. From Newsweek:

As long ago as 2015, Harris supporter Rick Wilson, cofounder of the ethically troubled anti-Trump Lincoln Project, told MSNBC "They're still going to have to go out and put a bullet in Donald Trump." In August 2020, Harris replied "does one of us have to come out alive?" when asked on Ellen DeGeneres' television talk show if she would rather be stuck in an elevator with Trump, Mike Pence, or Jeff Sessions. DeGeneres and the studio audience laughed along with Harris. Last year, House delegate Stacey Plaskett (D-V.I.) told MSNBC that Trump "needs to be shot." After the first attempt on Trump's life, former Biden White House communications director Kate Bedingfield told CNN that Democrats should "turn their fire on Donald Trump."

We should all take a step back here. As any good lawyer should tell you, the only people to blame are the ones pulling the trigger or planning to. Unless, of course, we eventually find out that others were behind the attempts. We may not know that for years, although we know Iran’s crazy mullahs want to kill Trump. As President, Trump ordered the killing of one of their top generals, Quesem Soliamani, who was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers. Many other Trump Administration officials are the subject of ongoing death threats and have been afforded federal protection, including former national security advisors John Bolton and Robert O’Brien.

All this violence also inspires conspiracy theories.

Here’s one making the rounds that one doesn’t need to dig too far on X (former Twitter) to find: Some political violence or “black swan” event from a widening of the war in the Middle East or Ukraine will lead to postponing or canceling the November elections. Many suspect that terror cells in the US, facilitated by our open southern border, will unleash something. I don’t want to believe that, but pull up your search engine and search “black swan events 2024.” Have a stiff drink handy, but you’ll be relieved that many black swan events predicted earlier this year didn’t happen. Some are crypto-inspired scams. So there’s that.

The late Donald Rumsfeld, the youngest (Ford Administration) and oldest (Bush 43 Administration) person ever to serve as US Defense Secretary, is famous for his “known unknowns” speeches and writings. The bottom line: the 40 or so days (!) until “election day” are full of “unknown unknowns.” And I refuse to worry about them besides the basic emergency preparations we should all do. Especially if Trump wins, I will be a little more prepared than usual for the post-election period.

The reality is that post-January 6th, the US Capitol was encircled in concertina wire and National Guard troops (primarily unarmed) in constant fear of right-wing hit squads making another attempt. It never materialized and there was never any evidence of it being planned. There has been no significant political violence from “the right” other than what we’re still learning about from January 6th. But as there was Antifa-inspired violence in downtown Washington, DC, during Donald Trump’s 2017 inauguration, you should anticipate, even expect, violence to ensue if he wins again. You should plan accordingly if you live in an area with weak leaders like Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN).

Not all incidents of political violence seem to come from The Left, but the pattern in recent years is unmistakable. A Bernie Sanders supporter, James Hodgkinson, inspired by MSNBC, critically injured US Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) and others on a baseball field in 2017. Another leftist followed it, Floyd Corkins, who tried to kill staff of the Family Research Council in Washington, DC. Now, a new survey shows that 28 percent of Democrats believe America would be better off if Trump were assassinated. Twenty-four percent were unsure—less than half say America would not be better off if Trump were assassinated.

That’s serious stuff. Spare me the “both sides” argument. I would be just as horrified if a survey of Republicans said the same of the Democratic nominee. I hope you would be, too.

My concern following our election, especially if Trump wins, is the breakdown of law and order, inspired in part by Governors like Walz, who stood by for days and refused to order the National Guard into Minneapolis, allowing massive destruction to take place. You can still see evidence of that damage.

Speaking of the 2020 Floyd riots, the events sparked many interesting reactions, all designed to express sympathy for the death of Floyd and the injustice it represented for so many. Dozens of public companies virtue signaled by throwing millions of dollars at the Black Lives Matter organization, much of which we have now discovered, were squandered on luxury accommodations and real estate for their grifting leaders. Members of Congress, all Democrats, took a knee while wearing African Kente cloths.

Another consequence in Virginia was the enactment of our first form of reparations.

Not the kind they’re on the verge of enacting in California, but college scholarships to the descendants of slaves. From the Chronicle of Higher Education:

College administrators are struggling to figure out how to comply with a little-known law passed by Virginia’s legislature in 2021 that requires them, in part, to make reparations through scholarships or other means.

The law orders five public colleges, all of which enslaved people during the antebellum period, to document and memorialize their involvement in slavery, and either provide scholarships to descendants of enslaved people or invest in economic development for communities negatively impacted by slavery.

The Enslaved Ancestors College Access Scholarship and Memorial Program, as it’s known, applies to the College of William & Mary, Longwood University, the University of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, and the Virginia Military Institute.

Colleges are not allowed to spend state funds or raise tuition to pay for the program.

The law was signed by then-Gov. Ralph Northam (D-VA) with a Democratic majority in the legislature. And, surprise, it’s running into complications. First, these descendants are hard to find. Second, finding the colleges’ records on the hiring of slaves to build or operate their schools during those early days, some predating the founding of the Republic is proving a challenge. Third, a Supreme Court decision in 2023 mostly bans the consideration of race in college admissions, which makes this even more challenging. That the schools can’t spend state funds or “raise tuition” doesn’t mean much since money is fungible.

Only five scholarships have been issued under this program thus far. The program’s author, State Delegate Dave Reid (D), says he was very careful not to use the word “reparations” during the legislation’s ascent to the Governor’s desk.

There’s no denial about the existence of and role of slavery in Virginia. Sixty percent of the Civil War was fought in this Commonwealth to end it, and over 2 million gave their lives in the process. Some Virginia communities continue efforts to erase any vestige or memory of slavery or slaveholders, which is proving a challenge, and in many cases, may not be a wise course of action.

This history is complicated and is fraught with emotion, even though no one living today owned slaves, nor their parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents (well, maybe former president John Tyler’s grandchild, who still lives). The recipients of these scholarships were never slaves, nor were their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, or great-great-grandparents. So much has happened to repair the wounds of that great conflict, especially the bipartisan enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1965 and all manner of laws, programs, and court decisions that preceded and followed it.

Let’s treat it as history and quit rehashing old events and ripping off wounds that have long healed, or should have by now. If not, how far back do we have to go? The “stolen lands” folks have never answered that one.

And a lot of us are descendants of both Union and Confederate soldiers, who went through quite the reconciliation process for decades following that awful war.

Union and Confederate veterans shake hands at the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg

While all history instructs us, let’s spend more time on history that unites us and less on what divides us. Maybe that would help lower the temperatures leading to political violence. Perhaps the news media could even lead the way and stop rewarding politicians and their enablers who incite division and worse, but I’m not holding my breath for that to happen.

It starts with us rewarding the behavior we’re seeking from our candidates and media. When we see it. And policing our own side when we see transgressions.