Given the recent assassination attempt on Donald Trump, let me be clear: assassinations have no place in this country, and anyone who thinks they do is evil. That is as black and white as it gets.
If somehow faced with the binary options of having Trump win the upcoming election versus having him lose at the cost of his own life, I hope everyone would choose the former.
Although the Democratic Party’s recent disarray is nothing to be proud of, it is noteworthy how almost every member, without hesitation, stood by former President Trump these past few hours (as of the time of my writing this). It is an admittedly low bar, but politicians running the gamut from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to President Biden outright condemned the violence as they should have.
However, this shooting will not make me respect Trump more by any stretch. Firing a gun is an action the shooter takes, not the target – he doesn’t become a hero because he got shot at (need I remind you of how he got out of the Vietnam draft).
A hero is the firefighter who sacrificed his life for his family when the shooting occurred, or the Secret Service agents who, against all their base instincts and common sense, made themselves larger targets while surrounding the former president.
With all that said, I was not originally thinking of writing an opinion piece about this since I assume you all hold killing to be generally immoral with certain emergency exceptions. However, I think this event offers an opportunity for introspection for all Americans, when compared with other events around the globe.
What made me write this were several social media posts from people I have not seen be active online for a long time. The posts themselves are not a problem. They are sympathetic to the opinion that this act of violence was unacceptable, and it will not define us.
Good people – liberals and conservatives alike – are putting up posts in solidarity with Trump. I also recognize not everyone can post something about every act of violence, as there is simply not enough time in the day to learn of such events and then post about them.
What I do wish for, however, is when people do hear of other acts of violence – against regular Americans or against people abroad – they take the time to, maybe for a second, have sympathy for the violence they are enduring.
I wish for people to at least sympathize with patients in a children’s hospital in Kyiv. I wish for people to at least sympathize with Sudanese refugees fleeing Rapid Support Forces troops clearing out their village in Darfur. I wish for people to at least sympathize with low-income communities that are allegedly “riddled” with crime. Although they may have higher crime rates, sympathy in the form of well-thought-out policies meant to lift such communities out of poverty, will reduce the number of people forced to resort to crime.
I suppose my point is you do not have to post about every unjust act of violence or even seek out articles about these wars and crimes. When you do read about them, however, sympathize with them. It may require liberals sympathize with conservative causes or conservatives sympathize with liberal ones. That is fine.
Double standards are often behind the misunderstandings that lead to violence in the first place, so double standards must be eliminated.
Understanding the fear and sadness people have when any act of violence occurs – whether it is real or imagined, warfare or crime, large-scale or small-scale, short- or long-lasting – is critical. Simply put, compassion should always be the word of the day.
Janagan Ramanathan is a Sartell High School alum, former U.S. Naval Academy midshipman and current aerospace engineering major at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.
