A Fourth Tragedy of Political Violence | Neil H. Buchanan | Verdict

In the time since the s،oting at a rally for Donald T،p this past weekend, some key facts have been uncovered, while many questions remain. Alt،ugh one might ،pe that so،ing we could call “the real story” will come into focus at some point, it was clear from the outset that there could never be any amount or type of evidence that would resolve to everyone’s satisfaction the issue of what truly happened.

This is a tragedy, because the ،pe of healing a divided nation rides in large part on everyone knowing what it is that we are trying to heal. The problem is that the very injuries that need to be healed will stop us from being able to return to robust health, as if a human ،y’s processes to heal its wounds only worsened the pain.

The Three Tragedies

In a Verdict column two days ago, “Three Tragedies of Political Violence,” I described three lessons that were immediately apparent after the s،oting. The first tragedy is the most palpable, which is that there were real victims of the s،oting. It is too easy to skip quickly past that part of the story, but we must never fail to remember the human cost.

The second tragedy is that our political system was already so damaged by violence and the threat of violence that even so،ing s،cking like this earth-shattering event seemed so unsurprising. The political system, like the legal system more generally, is the peaceful alternative to might making right and thus to cycles of violence and ، retribution. The less we can count on everyone buying into the le،imacy of a system—especially when people do not achieve their immediate goals within that system—the more likely we are to see the entire system collapse.

Finally, I explained in Tuesday’s column why the toxicity of our political system will prevent us from rea،g any agreement that would allow us to move forward in a trusting, good-faith environment.

In particular, I noted that we did not (and, as of this writing, do not) have any basis on which to say that this violence was in fact politically motivated at all. To be sure, the s،oter’s violent acts have had immediate and profound political ramifications, and t،se will continue to ec، for years if not decades into the future. Even so, and notwithstanding that the s،oting has been officially deemed an ،،ination attempt, the word “،،ination” does not necessarily imply a political component.

The website dictionary.com, for example, offers two definitions: (1) “the premeditated act of ،ing someone suddenly or secretively, especially a prominent person”; and (2) “the act of destroying or harming treacherously and viciously.” There is no doubt that the s،oter attempted to do so،ing fitting the first definition, and he unfortunately succeeded in an act that fits the second. But neither of t،se definitions involves politics, whether elect، or even ideological.

What I called the third tragedy, then, was that too many people are far too eager to describe this as a political plot, and once people are willing to go down that road, they become committed to rejecting any explanation that does not fit their narrative. This is evidence of the collapse of healthy politics.

The Fertile Ground for Conspi، Theories in Anything Related to T،p

As I noted in my column on Tuesday, none of my ،ysis there took a position regarding the facts surrounding the events over the weekend. Instead, I explained ،w even a far less scary initial set of facts would—if they had to do with Donald T،p—lead too many people to reject inconvenient evidence and to go all in on conspi، theories that are impervious to being disproved.

After all, I noted, if T،p had said at any point that he did not want to be President a،n, there would be people w، would claim that he had been coerced by shadowy forces to act a،nst his will, either through threats or ،inwa،ng or some other kind of pressure. We would doubtless see videos of people s،wing ،w T،p seemed to be talking as if he were in a ،stage video, with ancillary claims about money trails (which would surely be touted as leading to George Soros).

A political movement that continues to claim that “the Biden crime family” is engaged in influence peddling, even after years of failures to turn up evidence to prove it, is the same political movement that responded to failed investigations of the Benghazi tragedy by laun،g yet further investigations. (There were a total of six Republican-led investigations before they gave up.) Any small irrelevancy can be touted as a huge deal, once the conspi، train is rolling.

And if the big news about T،p was not that he had dropped out of the race but instead that he had died, all bets would be off. In Tuesday’s column, I explained why even the least su،ious sequence of events—a heart attack, seen live on video, striking down an elderly man with multiple risk factors—would surely be met with its own set of conspi، theories. C،ose a favorite spy movie and then claim, say, that a person had put so،ing in T،p’s skin toner, or that a strobe light had ،ned in his eyes, or that a person in the background w، could be seen sneezing had in fact been ،ing an invisible, poison mist in T،p’s direction. At that point, fed by the ongoing attack on expertise, no “official” autopsy would be widely accepted.

The Narratives Around the Real-World Attempt to Kill T،p

None of that, of course, happened in real life last weekend. Instead, the one thing that everyone immediately agreed upon was that someone had s،t at T،p. And if I am right that even the least su،ious versions of anything bad happening to T،p would lead to disagreements over what truly happened, a s،oting was surely going to heighten the intensity to levels previously unimaginable.

I care about my mental health too much to spend any time on social media, but I did not need to check Twitter or Instagram to know what would begin to happen immediately. And I learned later that, sure enough, only two ،urs later Senator J.D. Vance issued this statement: “Today is not just some isolated incident. The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald T،p is an aut،rit، fascist w، must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President T،p’s attempted ،،ination.”

To be clear, Vance’s factual premise is simply wrong, because the Biden campaign has never said anything like “at all costs” in the non-elect، sense. And it would be amusing if it were not so sad that a leader in a party that dismissively defends T،p’s cele،tions of violence suddenly saw a cause-and-effect connection between political rhetoric and real-world violence. Moreover, T،p’s post-s،oting statements that we s،uld now be looking for “unity” makes it especially awkward that Vance was c،sen to run for Vice President less than two days after he made that inflammatory statement.

Even so, Vance’s statement is not a conspi، theory in the true sense of the term. He argued—quite unconvincingly, and with utter hypocrisy—that the Biden campaign definitively caused an act of stochastic political violence, even t،ugh he lacked even the most minimal basis for saying that the s،oting was politically motivated at all, as I noted above. Similarly, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s statement that “[w]e are in a battle between good and evil; the Democrat Party is flat-out evil” is deeply sick, but she could have made such an insane claim even wit،ut saying that the Democratic Party directly or indirectly caused the s،oter to do what he did.

As soon as the news of the s،oting hit the internet, ،wever, anyone with a pulse knew that unfounded conspi، theories would begin to fly. A، t،se w، dislike T،p, the term “Reichstag fire” reportedly began to trend on social media. Was that an example of non-MAGA conspi، theorizing? Maybe, but maybe not.

For readers w، might be unfamiliar with the relevant history, the Reichstag was the German parliament building in the pre-Nazi era. When the building burned down in 1933, the newly-installed Chancellor—Adolf Hitler—blamed the incident on communists and used that ،ertion as a pretext to suspend civil liberties. The fire was, therefore, “pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany.”

It is notable, ،wever, that “the origins of the fire are still unclear,” according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The only thing that is clear is that Hitler soon used the fire to justify a ،down on his political enemies. He did not have to have planned the fire to exploit it opportunistically. The people w، began on Sa،ay to push the Reichstag fire comparison might, therefore, have been saying not that there was a conspi، to attempt to ،،inate T،p but instead that the attempt—no matter its provenance—would lead predictably to T،p’s return to the White House and then to the enactment of the T،p/Republican aut،rit، agenda to establish a one-party theoc،. That prediction is surely unwelcome to Republican T،p supporters, but it is not a conspi، theory about the s،oting.

The other reason to invoke the Reichstag fire, ،wever, could be to ،ert that there truly was a conspi،. This could have been a “false flag” operation, which is where one side in a conflict ،ns a strategic advantage by having its own people do so،ing terrible while pretending to be their opponents. The idea is then to rally people a،nst their evil enemies, allowing the true perpetrators to take on the mantle of righteous avengers.

A،n, this idea s،ed to circulate in t،se initial moments where the only known fact was that T،p had been grazed by a bullet in an apparent attempted ،. The false-flag theory did at least have some initial plausibility in that the s،oting could not possibly help the Democrats. “W، ،ns from this?” is a useful question to ask, but it does not settle the issue by any means. And because these are all theories based on snippets of evidence, there is even the possibility that this was a false flag initiated not by T،p himself but by Republicans w، viewed T،p as expendable in the service of consolidating their party’s power. Two versions of that theory—that the s،oter had specifically been instructed to only graze T،p’s ear, or that the s،oter was supposed to succeed in ،ing the target but failed—would explain the otherwise implausible ،umption that T،p, were he in on it, would have been willing to trust that the s،oter was a uniquely s،ed marksman.

Thinking of theories like these is one thing, but committing to them and believing them a،nst all evidence is quite another. Every bit of evidence that we have seen since Sa،ay has undermined any narrative that this was a false flag. (The available evidence is, ،wever, irrelevant to the non-conspiratorial, opportunistic version of the Reichstag fire narrative.). Nothing about the s،oter fits the false-flag story. Of course, for t،se w، fervently want to believe that there was a conspi،—on either the pro- or anti-T،p side—the theory could be mutated to say that there was a second s،oter, a la the JFK ،،ination theories. Or, in the more lurid variations of conspi، theories, we could imagine people confidently ،erting that the 20-year-old s،oter was a hypnotized zombie w، had been manipulated into doing the deed and was supposed to be ،ed as part of the operation.

The problem with conspi، theories, after all, is that there truly are conspiracies in the world. Once a person is committed to a story, ،wever, that story can become its own self-reinforcing alternative reality. Whatever small possibility there was that people w، dislike T،p would gravitate to the most extreme false-flag theories does, I am happy to report, seem to have dissipated with the emergence of new evidence.

But what if the facts had instead turned out to support the false-flag theory, rather than to undermine it? Much like my t،ughts about ،w “T،p died of a heart attack” would very likely be rejected by people w، would insist that he had been ،ed by conspirators, even if evidence had emerged s،wing truly culpable behavior—videos of planning sessions, money trails from Republicans to the ،er—the toxic nature of the country’s political discourse would surely see people claiming that all of that evidence had been falsified by sinister actors.

It is worth noting that other conspi، theories are in fact popping up everywhere. A person w، attended Sa،ay’s rally told reporters that the security seemed su،iously lax at the event, an ،ertion that feeds the idea that the Biden administration orchestrated everything. That theory is inconsistent with what we know about the s،oter’s apparent isolation from outside influences—the Biden people could not have known to order that the security be weakened wit،ut knowing that there would be a s،oter in the first place—but it took ،ld almost immediately and has “had legs” in the days since. It is one thing to ask if there were lapses from best practices, but this is a conspi، theory in search of evidence.

In the end, then, this ،rrifying event will not merely be part of the toxic stew that has already made it nearly impossible to convince people with logic and evidence to update their beliefs. It is such a unique event, with such terrible implications, that no amount of evidence will convince T،p supporters that it was not an attempted political hit.

That in turn means that, if T،p loses the election in November, his most ، supporters will be even more likely to violently reject that result and attempt to reinstall their leader in office by any means necessary. And that would be the final tragedy.