Why I am Not Surprised

The shock, amazement, and complete astonishment that someone would attempt to assassinate Donald Trump is inescapable.  The tsunami of  punditry, op-ed pieces, social media posts, newscasts, and such has been overwhelming.  That flood of commentary contains comments like, “This is not who we are,” “Violence is never the answer,” What have we become?”

The pious hand-wringing and moral outrage is expected and very typical.  You know, thoughts and prayers.  But it is also sophistry and bullshit.  This is exactly what we have become. I am not surprised in the least.

This is a country where Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, JFK, MLK, (and RFK) were assassinated.  Attempts were made on Jackson, Roosevelt (Theodore), Roosevelt (Franklin), Truman, Reagan, Ford, Obama and now Trump.  That is about 25% of our Presidents facing assassination that we know of.  A one in 4 chance is not rare, or extraordinary —  it is frequent.

This is the county where Paul Pelosi was attacked in his home, Gabby Giffords was shot in the head at a campaign rally, and George Wallace was rendered a paraplegic by someone who was unhappy with their politics.

This is the country that has a Supreme Court whose interpretation of the 2^nd Amendment allows semi-automatic rifles, large capacity magazines, and bump stocks for “personal protection.”  It is easier in many states to get a concealed carry license than it is a drivers’ license.   Since 2006, there have been almost 600 mass shootings (4 or more fatalities) and approximately 3,100 deaths.  That is close to the number of 9/11 deaths after which we spent trillions of dollars to prevent another incident.

This is the country where Kyle Rittenhouse gets to walk away a free man after killing a Black man at a Black Lives Matter demonstration.  It is the country that “allowed” lynchings until well into the 1960’s.

This is the country where candidate Trump said he could shoot someone on 5^th avenue in New York and nothing would happen to him.  He also suggested that “the 2^nd Amendment” would solve the problem of Hilary Clinton picking judges.  Marjorie Taylor Greene’s 2022 campaign video had her promising to “blow away the Democrats’ socialist agenda” as she took aim with a rifle.

This is the country where the Kansas Republican party held a fundraiser where one could punch an effigy of President Biden….if you had donated.  Donald Trump, Jr. reposted a picture of President Biden bound and gagged in the back of the pickup truck.

This is the country where we average 50,0000-gun deaths a year, with half being homicides.  And, of course, many states still have the death penalty.

This is also the country that has engaged in attempting and sometimes achieving extra-national and assassinations of politicians and leaders we do not like.  Think Diem in Vietnam, Lumumba in Congo, Castro in Cuba.  According to Wikipedia one source says there were 81 overt and covert regime changes led by the United States since 1946.  Another source states the 64 covert and 6 overt regime changes were performed by the United States during the cold war.  In every one of those cases, we did it for reasons of national security or fighting communism, or business interests.  Can there be any doubt that many of them were accompanied by violence and death?

So please, spare me the wailing and gnashing of teeth over how this could have happened.  The truth is this IS who we are and what we have become.  We are a culture of violence.  And while it is very politic to express shock, embarrassment, and suggest we all sit in ashes over this, the reality is we have, as a country, been working very diligently towards events just like this and we continue to make decisions that will keep it that way for a long time. 

While we might often say violence isn’t the answer, it sure seems to be applied with real frequency. We cannot change the outcomes without changing the context.