the left/right duopolistic nature of politics is imo unhealthy for democracy and politics in general. its founded on a political tribalism that sets one party off against another.
my belief is that if right and left would set aside the childish hatred of the other (aka "them") and engage constructively in the nation interest instead of party or self-interest the nation would heal its wounds, cut out the cancer of hatred and achieve a more grossly beneficial decision making process that would benefit all people.
Thomas Jefferson, the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, once said that the "tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants". Over the years, those words have become something of a far right meme, and taken at face value.
Partisan rage has now become the defining characteristic of US politics, and it came to the fore immediately after the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. This time it was Republicans who blamed Democrats for inciting violence through their demonisation of Donald Trump. The kind of attack which in another country might unify the nation ended up exposing its all too familiar fault lines.
Minutes after the shooting, conspiracy theories also abounded on social media, that modern-day super-spreader of misinformation. Had the Secret Service allowed the attack to take place, given so many rally attendees had noticed the gunman lying on the roof? Had Joe Biden or the "deep state" ordered and orchestrated a hit? Had the Republicans staged the entire event?
But, as with political violence and mass shootings, conspiracy mongering has long been an American contagion. On the day of his assassination in November 1963, John F Kennedy was on his way to deliver a speech in Dallas where he intended to warn against "ignorance and misinformation" and "voices preaching doctrines wholly unrelated to reality".
On the eve of the Kennedy assassination, the eminent historian Richard Hofstadter delivered a bleak lecture at Oxford University, which became the basis for his seminal essay, The Paranoid Style in American Politics. Political life back at home, Hofstadter argued, had "served again and again as an arena for uncommonly angry minds". The paranoid style, he called it, "because no other word adequately evokes the qualities of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness and conspiratorial fantasy".
What happened on Saturday, then, is deeply rooted in American history, and follows the same perilous path the country has been travelling for decades.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-18/attempted-assassination-donald-trump-not-surprising-usa-violence/104103776hatred causes anger, anger causes violence. violence makes the nation unhealthy for business and for people.
