Despite appeals for peace, the U.S. has a long history of political violence

Transcript

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

While it remains to be seen what motivated the shooter, the assassination attempt on former President Trump was political violence. And this violence came, of course, after years of escalating rhetoric in this country - in political speeches, in everyday communication - rhetoric that invokes violent language and imagery to raise the stakes for voters. So to look at the connection between rhetoric and political violence and the history of political violence in the U.S., we've called Matthew Dallek. He's a historian and professor at George Washington University currently working on a book about the history of failed presidential assassination attempts. Welcome.

MATTHEW DALLEK: Thanks so much for having me.

CHANG: Well, thank you for being with us. So, you know, it feels like the bright line between violent political speech and actual political violence has been fading over time. This is something that you have written about. Can you just give us a quick look back on the recent history that has brought us to this point?

DALLEK: Yeah, so unfortunately, the rhetoric - I would say over the past decade, the rhetoric has become increasingly one of dehumanization. And the rhetoric has also suggested that the greatest enemy to the United States is internal. And American politics is always tough - the rhetoric, the language is always harsh, but I think this is of a different order of magnitude.

CHANG: But to be very clear, at least while we're talking about recent history, it's important to point out that it's not like one side has had an utter monopoly on violent rhetoric, right? I mean, I'm just thinking recently, you know, like, a supporter of Bernie Sanders, for example, a few years ago shot at a number of Republican members of Congress while they were practicing on a baseball field.

DALLEK: Yeah. Absolutely. I do think that a lot more of it has been coming from the far right. If we think about the person who attacked Paul Pelosi - the former speaker of the House's husband - with a hammer, Charlottesville - the White Supremacist violence at Charlottesville - the January 6 attack on the Capitol, which I think is the clearest instance in recent history of a direct link between violent rhetoric and actual violence.

CHANG: When you look back further, though, at the historical evidence beyond just the past decade, has the right tended to be more willing to engage in political violence than the left has? I'm curious.

DALLEK: That's such a great question. If we go to the 1960s and 1970s, some of it absolutely was coming from the massive resistance on the political right - the massive resistance to civil rights, the Ku Klux Klan and the really horrific violence, including bombings and lynchings and murders of civil rights workers and African Americans primarily.

But there was also very much a dynamic on the left of political violence. So The Weather Underground, which was an offshoot of the antiwar Students for a Democratic Society and believed basically in using bombs, using violence to try to stop the war. A woman, Sara Jane Moore, took a shot at Gerald Ford. And she was a radical antiwar activist and believed that when - if she could kill Ford, she could trigger the revolution in the country - topple the government somehow.

I think the point, though, is that when extremes on both sides - when they become more powerful, I think it empowers the extremes.

CHANG: Well, here's the big question. There has been this long-running erosion of norms that keep politics pretty civil. And now everyone is calling for a return to those norms, right? But does it feel like, as a country, we've passed a point of no return? I mean, listening to you as a historian who has a long view, it sounds like we've been this way all along.

DALLEK: Look, I think that even though political violence is, on some level, a fact of American life - it's kind of embedded in the culture - at the same time, I think that there are ways in which our democratic institutions can hold the line, can push back. Obviously, social media is another important piece, right? But this is, of course, a structural problem. And the goal, I think, is not to eliminate political violence, which is - altogether, which is unlikely, but to really minimize it - to tamp it down and to make it far more the exception than the norm.

CHANG: Matt Dallek, professor at George Washington University's College of Professional Studies - he's working on a book with his dad, Robert Dallek, about the history of failed presidential assassination attempts. Thank you so much for speaking with us today.

DALLEK: Thank you so much for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.