In the wake of Donald Trump’s near assassination, Americans took to the internet. The left insisted it was a political stunt, staged to win Trump more votes. The right claimed it was an inside job. It didn’t take long for the conversation to turn vitriolic with media channels zeroing in on conspiracy theories and blame. We’re missing the point.
The suspected shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was a 20-year-old boy who grew up around the corner from my childhood home in Upper St. Clair, Pa., at the border of Bethel Park. My parents still live there, where the homes are more modest, and you can walk to Trader Joe’s. When my brother married, he moved to Bethel Park, where he could afford more land and raise his chickens.
Without much information on the shooter, media reports struggle to understand a boy they’ve painted as a loner outcast; it’s a mistake. We made the same folly with Columbine, rather than looking at the broader culture that breeds violence. It’s also a mistake to pit one side against the other. Crook’s phone showed a search history of photos of Joe Biden, Trump, and FBI Director Christopher Wray. The problem isn’t an outlier; the problem is a U.S. population that’s lurched from parties and ideas to people and idols.
A week after the shooting, we’re still blind to the real problem — we hate each other. Yes, hate may be hyperbolic, but let me paint you a picture of Bethel Park. It’s the sort of neighborhood where police help you restart your car and drive drugged-out teenagers home rather than throw them in jail. It’s a step more progressive than neighboring townships, but all the same, Bethel Park represents the political division that brings presidential candidates to Pennsylvania. It’s a town that can swing either way.
In 2020, Biden won Pennsylvania with 50% of the votes; four years later, in 2016, Trump won with 48.6% of the votes. In Allegheny County, which includes Bethel Park, it was nearly as close, with Democrats taking just 56% of the votes in 2016.
A walk through the Bethel Park neighborhood is a showing of political division, with every other house hosting rival political signs. I hurry my step each time I pass the house of the man with an upside-down flag — a denial of Biden’s 2020 victory. The town, like the nation, has an undercurrent of unease; we’re bringing cake to block parties with firearms tucked into picnic baskets.
Each side believes they’re voting to “save democracy.” Democrats fear Trump will gobble and keep unlimited powers and Republicans accuse the liberal left of being Communists. In the background, democracy is threatened by a system that’s losing its umpires — an apolitical judiciary and a free and unbiased press.
One of many court cases against Trump was filed by a registered Democrat, Alvin Braggs, while the former president’s Mar-a-Lago documents case was dismissed by a Republican judge who Trump himself appointed.
The press can be divided into left and right channels; an unfortunate situation that Republicans quickly took advantage of after the attack on Trump — calling out news sites for headlines that seemed to downplay the shooting.
Speaking of biases, I’m a registered Democrat who votes in Pennsylvania. I think Trump is a disgrace, but I don’t think everyone who votes for him is. A country divided by isms is destroying its own pillars based on the love or fear of Trumpism.
We’re angry. We’re afraid. The U.S. is on the brink. It’s why Trump’s rhetoric is so effective; he taps into the emotions coursing through this country’s veins.
Columbine wasn’t an isolated event caused by bullying and neither is Trump. We’ve got to stop blaming Biden’s senility, the supposed ignorance of the other side, and the lone outcast. We’re looking at the attempted assassination through the lens of an embittered and embattled political landscape. One side idolizes the brand Trump created, while the other idolizes a world they think could exist without him.
The fall of democracy won’t be at the hands of a single man; it will come from the unraveling of the checks meant to protect this fragile experiment. After Columbine, school shootings wove themselves into America’s fabric. We can avoid that same mistake; the press and our politicians have an opportunity to examine and respond to America’s tenuous position. It’s not too late to change course.
Lutz is a freelance writer focusing on international affairs, climate change, development, and health.