Republicans are correct that words can incite violence – they would know

The right's criticism of dangerous rhetoric is both shrewd and deeply hypocritical.

A pro-Trump mob breaks into the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. Photo by Win McNamee / Getty Images

Never, the apocryphal quote often attributed to Winston Churchill goes, let a good crisis go to waste. As Republicans gathered for their convention just days after Donald Trump was shot at during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, the party took that lesson to heart. Their strategy asserts that the Democrats’ strongest argument against Trump – that his statements threatening American democracy make him a threat to American democracy – incited the violence against him, and that it’s the left, not the right, that drives political violence.

This is a canny approach, based on staggering hypocrisy from a party that has arguably spent the past several years revelling in politically motivated violence. But the emerging Republican narrative goes beyond the hypocritical into true through-the-looking-glass stuff, drawing premature and largely nonsensical conclusions, and projecting their bad acts on to others. This has caught many Democrats by surprise.

The attempted assassination of Trump deserves wholesale condemnation. No one should hesitate to say that political violence is wrong, as are efforts to excuse it.

We should be clear, though, about who more often foments, excuses and celebrates political violence, and violence more broadly. When, in October 2022, a hammer-wielding attacker broke in to the home of the former House majority leader Nancy Pelosi and nearly killed her husband, the Maga response was mockery. After the attack, Trump went before a live audience to jeer “crazy Nancy Pelosi”, then paused before sneering, “How’s her husband doing, anybody know?” Laughter from the audience ensued. His son Donald Trump Jr retweeted a Paul Pelosi Halloween costume: men’s underwear and a hammer. Two years prior, Trump made light of the FBI’s discovery of a domestic terror plot by extremists to kidnap the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer.

Trump also cheered on the criminals who on 6 January 2021 stormed the Capitol, threatened the life of his vice-president, and refused to step in early to stop them. He continues to call the perpetrators of that deadly insurrection “patriots” and paints those who have been jailed for their participation as “hostages” whom he promises to pardon if he’s elected.

Violence has historically spanned the political spectrum. But it has rarely been equally used by both sides at the same time. In the US right now, political violence is more of a right-wing problem than a left-wing one. A Reuters evaluation of politically motivated violent acts between 2021 and 2023 found that political violence in the US is at its worst since the 1970s, and that the right drove more of this than the left. While the left was responsible for several acts of property damage, for instance, right-wing violence was more likely to physically harm people. Since the Capitol riot, Reuters identified 14 politically motivated attacks, 13 of which were committed by right-wing assailants.

At the time of writing, authorities have not discerned the motivation of the shooter, a 20-year-old registered Republican. Understanding what motivated the shooter is crucial to comprehending the broader picture of what happened. The last presidential assassination attempt in the US was committed because the mentally ill perpetrator wanted to impress the actress Jodie Foster by shooting Ronald Reagan. Yet some Conservatives are claiming that the Trump shooting was the fault of the left. The layers of hypocrisy are stunning.

But it is useful for Democrats to ask what may have led to this. Has the rhetoric become too heated? In painting Trump as a fascist, does it suggest that vigilantes need to stop him by any means necessary?

Asking these questions isn’t the same as answering them in the affirmative. In my view, a fair reading is that Democratic politicians have told voters they should believe that Trump will do exactly what he says he will, and have encouraged them to use the democratic processes available to them to save democracy. Some liberal commentators (though notably few prominent Democratic politicians) have used words like “fascist” to describe Trump. But they haven’t completely disregarded reality, as the Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene did after Trump was shot, when she accused Democrats of being paedophiles and murderers.

Facts are the key difference here. Obviously, the Democratic Party is not one of paedophiles and murderers. Fascism, on the other hand, is broadly understood as a political movement that is militaristic, hyper-nationalist, anti-democratic, conservative, and hostile to liberals, communists, political dissent and a free press. It claims persecution while promising to persecute political enemies, and often involves a cult of personality centred on one, strong, male leader.

Is pointing out a threat to democracy the same as inciting violence? And if it is, what do the current critics of Democratic rhetoric say about Trump calling Joe Biden “the destroyer of American democracy”?

The answer is nothing. Because the same conservatives now eager to claim that words lead to violence believe that accusation should only be levelled in one direction. They are right that words can incite violence – they would know. All of us who work in or adjacent to politics should choose words carefully, and in these fevered moments, especially judiciously. But an appeal to speak with care and to deny the use of dangerous rhetoric should not be an argument against speaking the truth.