The Blindness of Political Violence
When former President Donald Trump started helping Lee Greenwood hawk “God Bless the U.S.A.” Bibles earlier this year, many people joked online that Trump hadn’t even read a Bible before and couldn’t name anything in it (other than “Two Corinthians”). But as I watched his behavior during his rally on Saturday (July 13) after an assassination attempt, I thought back to what he long ago said was his favorite Bible verse.
“An eye for an eye.”
That’s what Trump told a New York radio host in April 2016 when asked during his presidential run to name his favorite Bible verse. He added, “That’s not a particularly nice thing. But you know, if you look at what’s happening to our country, I mean, when you see what’s going on with our country, how people are taking advantage of us, and how they scoff at us and laugh at us. And they laugh at our face, and they’re taking our jobs, they’re taking our money, they’re taking the health of our country. And we have to be firm and have to be very strong. And we can learn a lot from the Bible, that I can tell you.”
It’s an attitude he’s shared on other occasions. He showed up to the 2020 National Prayer Breakfast the day after surviving his first impeachment vote in the Senate — the one for trying to shake down Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for personal political gain, not the one for inspiring a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol while trying to overturn a presidential election he lost. Harvard professor Arthur Brooks talked at the breakfast about the importance of love amid growing polarization in the country. Brooks asked people to raise their hands if they loved someone with whom they disagreed politically. Hands shot up across the room. But not Trump’s.
“Arthur, I don’t know if I agree with you,” Trump said when it was his turn to speak.
Trump proceeded to practice what he preached by going after politicians of both parties who had voted to impeach him, including lobbing attacks on the faith of Sen. Mitt Romney and Rep. Nancy Pelosi.
The next month, Trump participated in a Fox News town hall where someone asked him why he uses “insult politics” and “controversial rhetoric” that doesn’t unite the country. Trump would have nothing of it, arguing that would’ve kept him out of the Oval Office.
“When they hit us, we have to hit back,” he insisted. “I wouldn’t be sitting up here if I turned my cheek. … You can’t turn your cheek.”
You can’t turn your cheek. And where did that idea come from? Not merely the red letters of Jesus, but the part where Jesus specifically taught that “an eye for an eye” is wrong: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you: Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.” Picking the “eye for an eye” verse as your favorite even after Jesus overrode it is like saying enslaving people is your favorite constitutional right even after the Thirteenth Amendment.
After several pops during Trump’s rally Saturday in Pennsylvania, he grabbed his ear. Secret Service agents swarmed him as others shot and killed the would-be assassin. What happened next is already iconic in photographs. Pushing up past the agents risking their lives to protect him, he repeatedly pumped his fist and mouthed to his followers “Fight! Fight! Fight!” He did it again at the car, once again pushing against the agents to rally his supporters while one lay dying and two others were bleeding. Soon, as people praised his display of strength and started selling shirts with the image, online threats of violence from far-right militias and hate groups escalated. Calls for “war,” urging violence against Democrats. An eye for an eye.
Preaching Violence
Political violence is always wrong. The attack on Trump was wrong, and so is anyone suggesting otherwise. In a democracy, we enact change through ballots, not bullets. Thinking we must switch to violence to “save” the nation will be counterproductive, normalizing such behavior and only encouraging others to respond in kind. It’s like Jesus warned Peter after the disciple wanted to fight, fight, fight for political power: Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.
Fortunately, in the aftermath of Saturday’s shooting, politicians across the ideological spectrum quickly denounced the attack and condemned political violence. President Joe Biden called Trump to see how he was doing and delivered only his third Oval Office speech.
“There is no place in America for this kind of violence — for any violence, ever. Period. No exceptions,” Biden insisted. “We cannot allow this violence to be normalized.”
It was a message echoed strongly by politicians who have long criticized Trump and are actively campaigning against him. Political violence is wrong and anti-democratic. A congressional staffer in one Democratic office who celebrated the shooting on Facebook was quickly canned. No one in office should condone, defend, or celebrate political violence. Everyone who does is morally unfit for office.
Like Donald Trump.
Political violence in the U.S. isn’t new. The 1960s were a particularly bloody political time. Both parties have found themselves targeted by political violence in recent years, such as the violent attacks on Democrat Rep. Gabby Giffords of Arizona in 2011 and Republican Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana in 2017. And both parties have had figures within their camps cheerleading political violence. But no public official over the past decade has glorified political violence more than Trump. While his political opponents condemned the attack on him, he has instead reveled in violence against those on the other side.
After inspiring the Jan. 6 insurrection with his lies about the 2020 presidential election, calling for people to come to D.C. for a “wild” day, and urging his supporters to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell” to “save” the nation, he did nothing while Capitol police found themselves under attack. When informed that day about the chants of “hang Mike Pence,” Trump suggested his vice president deserved it (which is why he now needs a new running mate).
The insurrection wasn’t an outlier. Trump had spent years encouraging and even celebrating violence at his rallies and on social media. He defended the antisemitic marchers in Charlottesville, Virginia, even after an innocent protester was killed. He suggested his rally attendees should rough up protesters, and he openly talked about wanting to execute opponents. After a foiled kidnapping attempt of Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer by rightwing extremists, Trump downplayed the incident, said “maybe it wasn’t” even a problem, and attacked Whitmer. And after a man broke into the California home of then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi and violently attacked her 82-year-old husband with a hammer, Trump mocked Paul Pelosi at rallies, drawing laughter as he celebrated the attack.
Contrast that to Nancy Pelosi’s response to Saturday’s shooting of Trump: “As one whose family has been the victim of political violence, I know firsthand that political violence of any kind has no place in our society. I thank God that former President Trump is safe.” Similarly, Whitmer said, “There is no place for political violence in this country, period. This is not how we solve our differences.” The level of grace Whitmer and especially Pelosi showed to Trump highlights his own moral unfitness for office.
Two things can be true: Trump is a victim of political violence and he is a dangerous cheerleader for political violence today. His inclination has always been to root for violence, to immediately shout “fight,” to seek an eye for an eye.
The condemnations of political violence after Saturday’s shooting are important, but they ring hollow without repentance by Trump and other Republicans who have defended the violence on Jan. 6 and mocked the assault of Paul Pelosi. If you only condemn political violence when it targets your side, you don’t actually oppose political violence. Any politician of any party who defends political violence should be rejected as morally unfit for office.
With the Republican National Convention this week in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the GOP has the chance to show who they really are. Will they still have the vice presidential nominee introduced by Donald Trump Jr., a man who joked about the attack on Pelosi? Will they still feature individuals — like Tucker Carlson, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and numerous others — who defend the Jan. 6 insurrection? Will they still hear from Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake who told supporters that to win the election they need to “put on the armor of God” and “maybe strap on a Glock on the side of us just in case”? Will they still platform North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the GOP’s candidate for governor who just two weeks ago declared during a Sunday church service, “Some folks need killing”?
Pray for Your Enemies?
In the aftermath of Saturday’s shooting, several prominent evangelical and Pentecostal backers of Trump quickly argued God had miraculously intervened to save Trump’s life. Consider a comment about Trump surviving on Saturday from one of the pastors arrested for his actions during the Jan. 6 insurrection: “God saved America (Again). I witnessed it live. These same people who stole the 2020 election just tried to assassinate the greatest president in my lifetime. YOU CANNOT CURSE WHOM GOD HAS BLESSED!”
There are some theological red flags about the certainty with which such arguments are made. Why didn’t God also save the life of the brave firefighter who died in Saturday’s attack while shielding family members? Why didn’t God save the lives of children at school shootings? The firm declarations that God acted here could land quite harshly on the ears of loved ones with an empty place at their dinner table. A second problem is these court preachers for Trump believe this proves Trump is divinely chosen to be president. Of course, many of them also prophesied God had chosen Trump to win again in 2020, which is why they joined Trump in lying about the election and setting the stage for the violence of Jan. 6.
Bad theology aside, this rhetoric makes the current moment even more dangerous. We already know that the Trump prophesies helped inspire the reactions to the 2020 election. After all, if God promised Trump would win, then results to the contrary must prove it is being stolen. And if it’s being stolen, then it’s our patriotic and even Christian duty to show up on Jan. 6 to help stop that. As false prophets often do, the Trump preachers quickly retooled their messages after Biden put his hand on a Bible and took the oath of office. They’ve spent the last three years preaching about a second coming of Trump, like at the ReAwaken America Tour and in prayers at Trump rallies. Along the way, many of these Trump preachers have employed violent rhetoric, reframing the “armor of God” for a partisan fight and literally demonizing their opponents. To this already violent, messianic rhetoric about Trump, they are now framing his survival of the assassination attempt as another sign from God.
In the coming days and weeks, we will likely see sacred language and biblical texts weaponized even more to frame the campaign as a holy war. Of course, to do that, one must ignore or rewrite the words of Jesus. Forget about turning the other cheek and just keep the old eye-for-an-eye mindset. And that comment Jesus made a couple verses later about praying for our enemies? Well, that needs to be “fixed” as well. Like how Steve Bannon did just before entering a federal prison on July 1 after his conviction on contempt of Congress charges for refusing to testify before the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack.
After a Catholic priest standing nearby offered words of encouragement and promised to pray for Bannon, the former chief strategist for Trump offered an unusual homily: “Father, don’t pray for me, pray for our enemies. They’re the ones that are going to need the prayers!”
Bannon completely missed the point of Jesus’s comment. Bannon sees the call for prayer as necessary because of what is going to happen to our enemies after we retaliate. But Jesus was teaching us to pray instead of retaliating. If we pray for our enemies like Jesus taught, then we can’t demand an eye for an eye like what far-right groups are calling for online after Saturday. We need a better way.
We are in a dangerous place as a nation. Even before Saturday, polls showed more and more Americans say they agree that “patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.” Saturday’s attack could’ve been much worse. But even it shattered the world of one family and sent Trump and two more individuals to the hospital. We still have nearly four months until election day. If recent months are any indication, it will be a time full of dangerous rhetoric and perhaps even actions.
Christians need to be part of the solution instead of adding to the violent rhetoric. As Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us, violence is “both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert.”
As a public witness,
Brian Kaylor
Thanks, Brian, for speaking the Truth prophetically!
Exactly on the mark! Thanks so much!