In our age of social media and instantaneous global communications the news that there was an assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump – and presumptive Republican nominee for the November elections against Pres Joe Biden – flashed across the world within minutes of its occurrence last Saturday at Butler Pennsylvania. Luckily of the several bullets fired by a lone 20-year-old gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, one just brushed Trump’s right ear and missing his brain and certain death by just an inch. Three bullets hit spectators killing one and critically wounding two others; the gunman was killed by police counter-snipers.
The incident shocked citizens across the world and messages quickly poured in condemning the attack. But it did not surprise veteran political analysts who have been warning about the dangers of violence breaking in in a gun-toting society that has become extremely polarized on account, ironically, of the rhetoric of right-wing members of Trump’s Republican Party. Trump himself epitomizes this tendency by constantly using coded and explicit language for violence to be used to defend their values. Back in May 2020, ABC news conducted a nationwide review that identified at least 54 criminal cases where Trump was invoked in direct connection with violent acts, of violence or allegations of assault. Then there the Jan 6, 2021 storming of Capitol Hill – dubbed an “insurrection” to prevent a transfer of power after Joe Biden and the Democrats as won the election held the previous November. At least five persons died and dozens of police wounded during the melee. The investigating House Jan. 6 committee’s final report asserts that “Donald Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol”.
But the assassination raises the wider issue of the use of violence as a political option in democratic societies. Democracy was invented as a mechanism avoid violence to resolve inevitable differences of opinions in society. It stipulated that if the majority of citizens – 50% +1- vote for a party then the latter are conferred with the legitimacy to govern on behalf of all the citizenry. The premise is that the parties that received votes -but not the majority – should continuing championing their views and work towards influencing voters to then form the government in subsequent elections. While this form of governance has its challenges, Winston Churchill once remarked, “Democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried.” Some of these “other forms” are monarchies, dictatorships, one-party states etc.
Democracy, then, requires a certain maturity and civility of spirit, especially from leaders, that springs from the notion that other point of views are to be given the benefit of the doubt. What has unfortunately occurred over the last few decades in many democracies, however, is a gradual retreat from these premises. Consequently, very polarised factions that define those who differ from them as “enemies” rather than “opponents” have ensued. This is the situation in the US – which has been a model for democracy since its formation in the late 18th century. Unfortunately, in Guyana the PNC has from its inception refused to adhere to the premises of democracy; installed as it was in 1964 by colluding with the British colonialises to subvert those rules and oust the PPP government. The rigging of elections in the next three decades flowed from that initial cynicism about democracy.
Today, with rise of the anti-democratic spirit and ethos abroad, the PNC and the other opposition parties have become emboldened and are using the newly available and ubiquitous social media platforms to spew the violent and divisive rhetoric that Trump is famous for. There is one talk-show host who allowed a call-in respondent to demand the heads of four top PPP government officials be lopped off because of their policies. The assassination attempt on former Pres Trump should be a wake-up call for our authorities to institute measures to control the rhetoric of violence in our democracy.
