How Should We -- Or Should We -- Talk About Violence When We Don't Know What Motivated It?
At the top of his show last night, Stephen Colbert said this:
Folks, the country is still shocked and horrified by yesterday's assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. However you feel about his politics, he was a young father of two small children, and an American who has the constitutional right to express his opinion in safety. It should go without saying that violence is never the answer to political disagreement, but I think these days, it should be said as often as possible.
Although I do not question Colbert's humane intent, and I fully agree with his call for nonviolence, the last twelve words of his statement -- "I think these days, it should be said as often as possible" -- strike me as at least arguably misplaced. While one might think that it could never the wrong time to call for nonviolent political discourse, I think it very much matters whether what just happened was in fact politically motivated violence; because if it was not, then talking about political violence might well reinforce exactly what we are trying to avoid.
I should be clear up front that I understand that my reaction here is most likely not widely held. Because I share space on this blog with Professors Dorf and Segall as well as some highly respected guest scholars, I will take this moment to say explicitly what is usually implicit: My views here are my own. I hope that what I write today is persuasive and makes my intended point that there are multiple ways that people of good faith might move forward; but to the extent that anything I say ends up being controversial, again, my views are my own. I certainly have not shied away from taking non-mainstream positions over the years, but in any event, my respectful (and tentative, to be honest) disagreement here is solely about what to say -- if anything -- when we simply do not know what happened.
So to make the point in different words, my argument here is only about what to do when we do not know why some act of violence happened. As of the moment that I am writing this, we still do not know what the gunman was thinking when he decided to murder Charlie Kirk almost two days ago. In the time since then, however, the response by people whom I respect has been to say something very much along the lines of what Colbert said. As I wrote above, I am not sure that they are wrong, but I am at the very least not sure that they are right -- and I am definitely not as sure that they are right as they seem to think they are.
Imagine that, contrary to reality, incontrovertible evidence had become widely available after the murder showing that the killer was not motivated by any political disagreement. In the absence of any such evidence, I (along with almost everyone, I suspect) immediately thought that it was highly likely to be a politically motivated act, and I can even say that I still think of that as more likely than not. But it is certainly possible that our gut reactions will turn out to be wrong.
We should recall, to note one highly relevant example, that the shooting of Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania last year was at first widely presumed to be left-on-right violence, but it turned out not to be what everyone was so quick to assume it was. The would-be killer was a registered Republican who had also apparently looked into killing then-President Joe Biden, and he might have been looking to commit mass violence for some toxic combination of reasons. And one of the most famous examples of what at first looked like politically motivated violence -- John Hinckley Jr.'s attempt to kill Ronald Reagan -- turned out to be based on a twisted delusion that no one could have imagined.
It is not necessary to try to come up with examples of what a non-political motivation for this most recent murder might be. Rather, the point is to ask what would have happened if everyone had known two days ago exactly why the killer did it, and that it had nothing to do with politics. What would people have said? Setting aside the conspiracy theories and cries of coverup that would have surely followed, what would the reality-based community have done had it been immediately presented with clear evidence that this was not political?
The answer is surely that the conversation would have turned to discussions of gun control and other contentious issues. Even so, under those circumstances, would it have made sense for Stephen Colbert -- or any other responsible, sober-minded person with a platform -- to say: "It should go without saying that violence is never the answer to political disagreement, but I think these days, it should be said as often as possible"? Not only do I not think that anyone would have said that, but it seems likely that saying it would itself have been irresponsible. Why admonish people not to engage in political violence -- as good as that advice surely is in the abstract -- when that is not what people are responding to? To bring it up is to give it oxygen that it would otherwise lack.
Again, however, my hypothetical is not reality, because we have been left wondering about motive for two days now and might never know why this happened. So let us change the hypo and say that the truth does indeed turn out to be something other than politically-motivated violence, but we find out a day, a week, or a month from now? Given that the conversation so quickly turned to political violence within the information vacuum, does that not mean that the wise response was to do what Colbert and others did, leaving open the option then to pivot if evidence turns up later showing that this was a red herring?
Former President Obama, for example, wrote that"[w]e don’t yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy." If it were me, I would have ended that statement at the comma, or I would have followed it with "so none of us should jump to conclusions or assume that it was a political act." And even if Obama felt the need to add the second part of the sentence, should he not have said that "this kind of despicable violence has no place in our society," not "democracy"? Again, he insists on making it about politics even as he stipulates that he knows no such thing (nor do any of us).
It is possible, however, to read such comments as not-at-all subtle rebukes of Trump, who immediately politicized the murder in the most divisive and dangerous ways imaginable. But if that were the intent, then it would be even more important to lean on the first half of Obama's statement and omit the second half, replacing the latter with, "and anyone who says otherwise is putting people needlessly in danger."
I should say that, given Trump's comments, I was genuinely surprised (and relieved) that the first two people who were taken into custody were released -- although it should surprise no one that those two unlucky men have received threats even after being cleared. The possibility of a Richard Jewell-like situation (or much worse) is palpable.
So if the grownups in the room are trying to turn down the temperature, then I certainly applaud their intent. But again, there is something at least incoherent if not damaging about saying, "What we're all talking about is not known to be political violence, but let's stop the talk of political violence." Paul Krugman was one of the only sources I could find who wrote clearly and unambiguously that we do not know why this happened but that we do know who is trying to make it worse.
On the White House lawn yesterday, Trump said this: "We have radical left lunatics out there and we just have to beat the hell out of them." Obama and others are saying that it is essential to talk about political violence, which makes it much more difficult for them to say that Trump is categorically wrong to make it about political violence. They can obviously say that Trump is making it worse rather than better, but they have made it all too easy for Trump and his supporters to say, "See, everyone agrees that this is about political violence. The only question is what the aggrieved side -- us! -- does next."
As messaging errors go, the Colbert/Obama approach is not on any top-ten list. And to emphasize and extend my earlier disclaimer, I am not completely sure what the right answer is in this situation. At this point, however, I can say at a minimum that the "we don't know, but let's talk about it as if we do know" two-step feels troubling, to say the least.
- Neil H. Buchanan