After the failed attempt on his life, Donald Trump says he is a changed man. He told an interviewer that he had set aside the “humdinger” of a speech he planned to give at the Republican National Convention on Thursday in favor of a new one, focused on unity. “This is a chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world, together,” he said.
This call for unity would certainly be a first for the former president, and he might not be lying — at least about that one speech. But should we really believe that we will see a new Trump, committed to a more responsible approach to campaigning, ready to turn his back on the kind of violent, often hateful rhetoric that has characterized his entire tenure in politics?
The president apparently decided that he would not let Trump off the hook for the way he has made politics so much meaner and angrier over the past eight years.
President Joe Biden doesn’t seem to think so. That came through loud and clear in an interview Monday with NBC’s Lester Holt. Even after an Oval Office address in which Biden responded to the attempt on Trump’s life by saying “the political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated. It’s time to cool it down. And we all have a responsibility to do that,” the president apparently decided that he would not let Trump off the hook for the way he has made politics so much meaner and angrier over the past eight years.
It was actually rather refreshing. Not because we need to hear candidates criticizing each other more — but because it’s the truth, and even something as disturbing as an assassination attempt shouldn’t make us forget what we’ve seen with our own eyes for so long.
Biden had plenty of material to work with. He began by reiterating, as he often has, that it was Trump’s statement that there were “very fine people on both sides” at the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that made him decide to make his third run for the presidency.
To the criticism he got for saying on a private donor call last week (before the shooting) that the campaign should move past the issue of his age and “put Trump in the bull's-eye,” Biden did not hold back. (Notably, after the shooting, Biden explained that he was expressing that “there was very little focus on Trump’s agenda,” and also said it was “a mistake” to have used that word.) “I’m not the guy that said I want to be a dictator on day one. I’m not the guy that refused to accept the outcome of the election. I’m not the guy who said he won’t accept the outcome of this election automatically. You can’t only love your country when you win.” He criticized Trump for saying there will be a “bloodbath” if he loses, and for promising to pardon those convicted of participating in the violent insurrection that took place on Jan. 6, 2021. In short, the message was: If you’re concerned about rhetoric that encourages political violence, the Republican nominee is the one you should talk to.
Biden also said something unusual for a Democrat, which I couldn’t help but notice, especially as someone who recently co-wrote a book titled “White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy.” While Democrats are usually at pains to lavish praise on the fine people of the heartland, Biden noted a certain atmosphere often held in the places where Trump gets some of his most fervent support. “I’ve never seen a circumstance where you ride through certain rural areas of the country,” he said, and one can see “signs saying ‘F Biden’ and a little kid standing there putting up his middle finger. That’s the kind of stuff that’s just inflammatory, and a kind of viciousness.”
This doesn’t happen only in rural areas, of course, and there are liberals in those places, too. But Biden was absolutely right to point out that Trump has sent a clear message to those who feel, often with good reason, that our changing society and economy has left them and their communities behind. Trump has told them to nurture their resentments, give voice to their anger, and stop being civil to the people they despise. He has told them to hate immigrants and urbanites and Democrats, with all the venom they can muster. And too many of them have responded with a kind of joyful rage, liberated at last to let out their worst selves.
That’s why rhetoric is important; not only because it might incite a lone disturbed individual to attempt an assassination but because of what it communicates to everyone else. Trump’s rhetoric until now has been saturated with violence, from his lurid tales of supposed “migrant crime," to his gleeful jokes about Nancy Pelosi’s husband almost being murdered by a hammer-wielding assailant, to his suggestions that shoplifters should be shot on sight and that former advisers who have criticized him are guilty of treason, the punishment for which is death.
More than any other political figure in America, Trump instructs his cultish followers not only what to believe but how to think and how to act toward their fellow citizens. Making American politics more cruel and nasty than it had been in decades is an undeniable part of Trump’s legacy.
As the Secret Service began moving him off that stage in Pennsylvania on Saturday, Trump told them to stop; he turned to the crowd, held up his fist, and mouthed these words: “Fight! Fight! Fight!” Perhaps in the days since, he has had time to reflect and decide that his entire approach to politics has been too harsh and antagonistic. Perhaps in his convention speech he will unveil a kinder, gentler Trump, one committed to national reconciliation and good will even toward those who don’t support him — and not just for one night, but from that day forward.
President Biden doesn’t seem to think so, and it’s hard to disagree given everything we’ve seen for the last eight years. When Trump came into the convention hall Monday night, the crowd responded with a chant that echoed what he said in Pennsylvania: “Fight! Fight! Fight!” No matter what he says in his acceptance speech, they know exactly who he is, and so do we.