A terrifying incident in Louisville, Ky., this week revealed the dangers of the talk coming from the right about civil war and political violence.
Early Monday, mayoral candidate Craig Greenberg and his staff were busy at work in Greenberg’s campaign office when a man walked in and started firing a 9-mm handgun in what police described as an attempted assassination.
“When we greeted him, he pulled out a gun aimed directly at me, and began shooting,” Greenberg, a Democrat, said during a media conference after he and his staff were evacuated from the office.
Amazingly, no one was hurt. A bullet went through Greenberg’s sweater, but a staff member was able to slam an office door on the gunman and prevent any bloodshed.
The alleged shooter, a 21-year-old political activist, was arrested near the scene and later charged with attempted murder along with four counts of wanton endangerment.
While it's been reported that the activist was involved in the Black Lives Matter and gun-safety movements and there has been no indication yet that he had ties to any right-wing organizations, the shooting comes amid a rise in threats against politicians fueled by increasingly violent rhetoric coming from extremist Republicans.
The New York Times documented this trend in a story last week based on a review of more than 75 indictments related to threats against lawmakers since 2016.
“In recent years, and particularly since the beginning of (Donald) Trump’s presidency, a growing number of Americans have taken ideological grievance and political outrage to a new level, lodging concrete threats of violence against members of Congress,” the newspaper wrote, adding that the threats “surged during Trump’s time in office and in its aftermath, as the former president’s own violent language fueled a mainstreaming of menacing political speech, and lawmakers used charged words and imagery to describe the stakes of the political moment.”
We’ve all heard this with our own ears: Trump drawing cheers at rallies by suggesting violence his opponents, GOP lawmakers and candidates trying to whip their followers into a frenzy with talk of taking up arms against so-called forms of “tyranny” like mask mandates, Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar posting an animated video showing him killing Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with a sword, etc.
Behavior like this has created an ugly and dangerous environment in which threats against members of Congress hit a record high of 9,600 in 2021.
And those are just the numbers for national lawmakers. Threats are also on the rise to local officials and even non-politicians such as school board members and public school administrators, poll workers and health care providers.
Not all of these threats are coming from the right, but the Times found that most were. That can’t come as a surprise given that so many members of the Republican Party are trying to normalize violent speech by routinely including it in their public discourse.
This has to stop. Everyone — Republicans and Democrats — needs to quit talking about civil war and killing politicians, or else what happened in Louisville will go on and on. Regardless of where the violence is coming from -- the left, the right and the middle -- it's all a symptom of the dangerous environment being created by this hateful speech.
Nothing good comes from suggesting that political violence is acceptable in America, even in the most veiled terms or in the right’s barely disguised language about “Second Amendment solutions.”
Given that the GOP has largely fueled this problem, it holds the lion’s share of the responsibility for addressing it. Republicans must condemn, in the strongest terms, any member of their party who promotes or suggests political violence. That includes sitting members of the House and Senate, ex-presidents and other top leaders.
Republicans themselves can gain from denouncing the potentially deadly rhetoric, as they’re not immune to hatred from their own party. Who can forget the “Hang Mike Pence!” chants from the Jan. 6 insurrectionists? And Pence wasn’t the only target of the extremists’ anger — the Times reported that a significant percentage of the threats to members of Congress were being made to Republicans by Republicans.
American leaders across the board must start speaking out, especially those in the GOP.
This violent rhetoric is an uncaged monster threatening to harm not only elected officials but others who serve the public — scientists, public health officials, election workers, and many more.
No American should have to endure this menacing threat, especially those who are trying to make life better for the people they serve.
This time, miraculously, no one was hurt in the Louisville shooting. But unless talk of Americans attacking other Americans is driven back, there will be more similar incidents — and many more chances that those incidents will be bloody.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect reporting on the alleged shooter’s political ties.