What happened to Trump is a drop in a vast ocean of American violence

On Sunday evening, President Joe Biden addressed the nation from the Oval Office, condemning Saturday’s assassination attempt on Donald Trump. Biden expressed his condolences to the family of former fire chief Corey Comperatore, who was fatally shot at the rally. He extended his good wishes to Trump. He called on Americans to settle their differences at the ballot box and in the field of debate, rather than turn politics into “a literal battlefield or, god forbid, a killing field.”

But the most important part of Biden’s speech was when he contextualized what happened at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. This was not an isolated incident of political violence, but part of a continued surge. 

Violence has never been the answer, whether it’s with members of Congress in both parties being targeted in the shot, or a violent mob attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6, or a brutal attack on the spouse of former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, or information and intimidation on election officials, or the kidnapping plot against a sitting governor, or an attempted assassination on Donald Trump. There is no place in America for this kind of violence or for any violence ever. Period. No exceptions. We can’t allow this violence to be normalized.