Because the video was so graphic, with King striking an almost Biblical pose seeking forgiveness and relief, the 1992 acquittal of the four of the officers on criminal charges set off days of rioting in Los Angeles.
During the riots, King haltingly asked a simple question: “Can we all get along? Can we get along?”
It became one of the best-known phrases of the era, respected for its simple wisdom but also mocked for its apparent naivete.
That’s all a long time ago now, but we have the answer to King’s question. We know we can’t get along, that too many Americans not only profoundly and continuously disagree with one another but believe violence is sometimes a justifiable way to stop “them.”
In April, nearly 40 percent of Americans told pollsters from Rutgers University that assassinating President Donald Trump might be justified. In July, NPR/PBS News/Marist released a poll finding that 73 percent of Americans believe political violence is a major problem.
Last year, when an assassin’s bullet grazed Trump’s ear, many Republicans reflexively blamed Democrats for making him a target due to their rhetoric, while some Democrats refused to offer “sympathy for the devil.” Following Trump’s return to the White House, I’ve heard people say “too bad he missed” as recently as this week.
Charles McClintock-Wilson/TNS
The Murder of Charlie Kirk
The shooter who targeted Charlie Kirk, a Trump acolyte and ally, did not miss. Kirk was killed Wednesday at Utah Valley University.
Too often, in the wake of political violence, partisans blame the other side or say “what about” the harm supporters of the other party have caused as a way of excusing actions targeting someone they disdain.
How did I first hear about Kirk’s death? From a Facebook post linking to news of the shooting with the comment, “Thoughts and prayers, I guess” — an apparent off-hand example of the disdain liberals express when conservatives offer “thoughts and prayers” but no support for gun control following high-profile shootings.
“Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said after the Aug. 27 mass shooting at a Catholic church. “These kids were literally praying.”
Kirk’s death prompted unsympathetic social media posts pointing out his statement two years ago that gun deaths were “unfortunately” a price worth paying to preserve Second Amendment rights. Kirk said that in response to a mass shooting at a Christian elementary school in Nashville.
Kirk was asked about mass shootings moments before he was shot.
There’s a small irony in the fact Kirk was killed in Utah. Spencer Cox, the state’s governor, has spent much of his time in office arguing that Americans need to learn to “disagree better,” to learn how to argue without hate and not start shooting each other.
“This is a dark day for our state,” Cox said. “It’s a tragic day for our nation.”
“More than the leaders, we just need every single person in this country to think about where we are and where we want to be and to ask ourselves — is this it?”
Katy Kildee, The Detroit News/TNS
No Shelter at Home or Church
Public officials filling various roles — election administration, public health, school boards — have been subject to death threats in recent years. Some are from cranks, some are serious enough to warrant around-the-clock protection. All mayors of major cities have security details and nearly every mayor, along with many other elected officials, has had to experience protests outside their homes.
Some have left public life because of that, because of the clear danger posed not only to themselves but to their children.
In June, Melissa Hortman, a former speaker of the Minnesota House, was killed at her home along with her husband. The alleged assassin had already shot state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife at their home, carrying a list of other potential political targets in his vehicle.
One consequence of violence is putting elected officials at a further remove from their constituents. Since the Minnesota shootings, Congress has provided additional funds for security for its members. State legislators are rethinking the common practice of listing their home addresses.
As it happens, the 10th anniversary of the Charleston, S.C., church shootings fell three days after the Hortmans were killed. Among the nine Black worshipers slain at the Mother Emanuel Church by Dylann Roof, a white supremacist, was Clementa Pinckney, the church’s pastor and a state senator. At 41, he joined the long line of African American leaders killed in their prime.
“We know only that love can conquer hate,” Pinckney said a few weeks before he died. “Irregardless of our faiths, our ethnicities, where we are from, together we come in love, together we come to bury racism, to bury bigotry, and to resurrect and to revive love.”
Echoes of the Past
In the wake of Kirk’s death, numerous politicians offered statements condemning political violence.
“Political violence has no place in America,” said former Vice President Kamala Harris.
“We need every political leader to decry the violence and to do it loudly,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson.
Such expressions are indeed necessary but they mask a truth about the nation’s history. Violence has flared up many times in our politics. But it’s never led to anything good.
In 2018, Yale University historian Joanne Freeman published a book called The Field of Blood about violent acts in Congress in the decades leading up to the Civil War. “Armed groups of Northern and Southern congressmen engaged in hand-to-hand combat on the House floor,” Freeman wrote. “It meant the collapse of our national civic structure to the point of crisis. The nation didn’t slip into disunion; it fought its way into it, even in Congress.”
The assassination of President William McKinley in 1901 was part of a spate of killings of heads of state by anarchists around the turn of the 20th century. Other victims included French President Sadi Carnot (1894), Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1898) and King Umberto I of Italy (1900). The 1914 murder by a Serbian nationalist of Elisabeth’s nephew Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian crown, was the precipitating event that led to World War I.
In 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, followed by his brother Robert five years later, just after he declared victory in the presidential primary in California. Robert F. Kennedy’s murder took place only a couple of months after the murder of Martin Luther King Jr., the great civil rights leader.
Political violence in this country may still be rare in our time. But it’s not growing any less frequent.
Since a mob of Trump supporters assaulted Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, armed men have sought to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, former President Barack Obama (in his case, a Jan. 6 rioter) and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (badly injuring her husband Paul). In April, an arsonist attempted to kill Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro at the governor's mansion, setting fire to part of the building.
Do we want to risk reaching the same levels that led to the Civil War, World War I and all the upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s?
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