It is an article of faith that political violence has no place in America — or in any civilized country. As Margaret Thatcher once said, “You never, never, never allow the bullet and the bomb to oust the express view of the people by ballot.”
Yet, for unexplained reasons, such violence has dogged our history for centuries. The Black Panther leader H. Rap Brown said that violence “is as American as cherry pie.”
Political violence ended Abraham Lincoln's life at the end of our Civil War. In 1963, when it ended the promise of John F. Kennedy and Camelot. It silenced the stirring voice of Martin Luther King, and the potential of Robert F. Kennedy.
It was with us at the time of Ronald Reagan, who joked to his surgeons after being shot, “If I had this much attention in Hollywood, I’d have stayed there.” It was with us on Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump-inspired rioters stormed the Capitol and the president did nothing about it for three hours as he watched it unfold on television and schemed to overstay his term in office.
It was with us when Paul Pelosi, husband of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, was assaulted and beaten with a hammer in their San Francisco home two years ago.
Trump, the MAGA candidate for president, used that incident as an occasion for mockery: “What the hell was going on with her........