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Political violence is no joke |
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| Then-Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-
N.Y.) informed people gathered in Indianapolis of the
assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on that day, April 4,
1968. (John R. Fulton Jr./Associated Press) |
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| By William Kennedy Smith and Jean Kennedy
Smith |
The Washington Post |
William Kennedy Smith and Jean Kennedy Smith
are the nephew and sister of President John. F. Kennedy and Sen.
Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated on June 6, 1968.
On April 4, 1968, the day the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was
shot and killed, Robert Kennedy was campaigning for the
presidency in Indianapolis. Bobby conveyed the news of King’s
death to a shattered, mostly black audience. He took pains to
remind those whose first instinct may have been toward violence
that President John F. Kennedy had also been shot and killed.
Bobby went on, “What we need in the United States is not
division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what
we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness,
but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and
a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our
country, whether they be white or whether they be black.”
That speech has crystallized into the single most enduring
portrait of Bobby’s candidacy. Because it was extemporaneous, it
conveyed directly, and with raw emotion, his own vulnerability,
his aspirations for his country and a deep compassion for the
suffering of others. Bobby concluded his remarks that night by
urging those listening to return home and say a prayer for our
country and for our people. Those words mattered. While there
were riots in cities across the nation that night, Indianapolis
did not burn. |
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| Donald Trump made a controversial
comment about rival Hillary Clinton during a rally in
Wilmington, N.C., August 9. Trump told the audience, “If she
gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do,” adding: “Although
the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.” (The
Washington Post) |
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Today, almost 50 years later, words still
matter. They shape who we are as a people and who we wish to be
as a nation. In the white-hot cauldron of a presidential
campaign, it is still the words delivered extemporaneously, off
the cuff, in the raw pressure of the moment that matter most.
They say most directly what is in a candidate’s heart. So it was
with a real sense of sadness and revulsion that we listened to
Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, as he
referred to the options available to “Second Amendment people,”
a remark widely, and we believe correctly, interpreted as a
thinly veiled reference or “joke” about the possibility of
political assassination.
Political violence is a terrible inherent risk to any free
society. Dictators and strongmen like Vladimir Putin have an
answer. They are surrounded and shielded by force at all times.
They do not brook dissent. In democracies, we expect our leaders
to be accessible and, by and large, they want to be. Inevitably,
that makes them vulnerable and the loss of a leader at a crucial
time impacts family, country and even the world, for
generations. Anyone who loves politics, the open competition of
ideas and public participation in a free society, knows that
political violence is the greatest of all civic sins. It is not
to be encouraged. It is not funny. It is not a joke.
By now, we have heard enough dark and offensive rhetoric from
Trump to know that it reflects something fundamentally troubled,
and troubling, about his candidacy. Trump’s remarks frequently,
if not inevitably, spark outrage, which is followed by a
clarification that, in lieu of an apology, seeks to attribute
the dark undertones of his words to the listener’s twisted
psyche. This fools no one. Whether you like what he is saying
or, like a growing segment of the electorate, you reject it, it
is easy to grasp Trump’s meaning from his words. But what to
make of a candidate who directly appeals to violence, smears his
opponents and publicly bullies a Gold Star family, a decorated
prisoner of war and a reporter with a disability, among others?
To borrow the words of Army Counsel Joseph Welch, directed at
another dangerous demagogue: “Have you no sense of decency, sir,
at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”
The truth remains that words do matter, especially when it comes
to presidential candidates. On that basis alone, Donald Trump is
not qualified to be president of the United States. |
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