Why does it take the specter of violence before we can have a little political respite?
Why does it take the specter of violence before we can have a little political respite?
A re you nostalgic for a time when evil was mostly the stuff of superhero cartoons and video games? Perhaps we have the power to reclaim some innocence, optimism, and unity. Quite unexpectedly, we saw something like it happen in Washington, D.C., of all places. In the White House press room.
Donald Trump — during his first presidential term, his second, and the time in between — isn’t exactly known for turning down the temperature. At the same time, however, he didn’t start the fire. The fact that politics had become so maddening in the first place is what created a vacuum for the host of The Apprentice to fill.
However, for a moment — on the night of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which was interrupted by a gunman set on shooting the president and any cabinet secretaries he met along the way — there was a moment of sobriety. There was a moment when Trump wasn’t MAGA Man, and Beltway reporters weren’t the enemies of truth and civilization. They were all people who were doing their jobs, trying to make Washington work, and they all acknowledged that violence had no place there. The commentary since may not totally reflect that, and yet more of it did than seemingly ever before during the Trump administration.
Why does it take another assassination attempt on the president for us to realize that our rhetoric and our priorities are out of whack?
Later in the week after the incident, a ten-year-old boy asked a question at a Turning Point USA event at Missouri State University in Springfield, Mo. “Hi, my name’s Bryce. I came here from Billings — it was a ten-hour drive. I want to be a priest when I grow up. I just wanted to ask: What would your advice be?” Michael Knowles, a Catholic convert who works for the Daily Wire, made a joke in response, all the while looking impressed at the young man. “Don’t be a Jesuit. That’s — no, I don’t mean to — no, there are good Jesuits sometimes.” (Good Jesuits, of course, include their founder, Saint Ignatius of Loyola.) Bryce seemed to be guiding us in a grounding exercise: Reminding us of what is most important.
“Why has God put us here?” That’s the question Matt Walsh, also of the Daily Wire, posed in response to young Bryce. “I mean, God created all of us, which is an amazing fact: that we were all created. We were all intentional creations of the Lord of the entire universe,” he said. “The God that made by hand tens of billions of entire galaxies also created all of us, and he did that for each of us for a specific reason to come into this world and do something. And that thing is going to be different for everybody.” This is where discernment comes in. It’s important to know that you were chosen for something good, and even great; to know your heart as God made it as well as the strengths He has gifted you. “Ask God: ‘I know what I want to do, but God, what do you want me to do?’” Walsh also said to Bryce: “You’re already asking that question; you’re getting an answer. Continue asking it and continue being open to God’s answer.”
All of us should take that advice regarding not just our personal vocations but also our nation and culture. What exactly is the 250th birthday of the freest nation on the face of the earth for? Is it for endless political sparring and maneuvering? Or is it an excellent opportunity to exercise virtue? What more can we do to sow seeds of peace in global hot spots as well as in our own lives and in our encounters with others?
The media could have responded poorly to this latest assassination attempt. They could have simply gone on reminding their audiences that some of them see the president as a Hitlerian sociopath. Instead, Americans around the country seemed concerned primarily about the violence in our political bloodstream. Cynically, of course, you can note that the media, too, were necessarily targeted in this event — this threat on human life, on theirs. And yet, if it makes us more human, if it turns down the volume, we might just take the right lessons from this would-be tragedy.
Do pray for those who serve in the public square. That their lives might be protected and their sense of the nobility of the service renewed.
This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.