Editorial: Democracy must stand up to violence

Violence and democracy cannot exist in the same arena.

On Saturday, former president and GOP candidate Donald Trump was struck by a bullet as he spoke to an enthusiastic crowd of supporters in Butler County.

Trump, bloodied and defiant, was quickly removed from the stage. Despite the injury to his ear, he is otherwise safe. Three other bystanders are not. Corey Comperatore, 50, of Buffalo Township, was killed. David Dutch, 57, of New Kensington and James Copenhaver, 74, of Moon Township, were hospitalized.

The alleged shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, was killed by law enforcement.

None of this should have happened.

A political rally is an opportunity for the people to meet their leaders and hear from them — without filter or artifice. It is the electoral equivalent of live music — a different experience from the curated perfection of a recording.

But violence does not care about the words of the candidate or the rights of the people to hear those words. Violence does not care about the firefighter who dies placing his body between bullets and his family. Violence does not care about the trauma it inflicts.

We have learned over the course of years of mass shootings, school shootings, synagogue shootings and more that violence simply does not care what it damages or how or why. Violence simply spreads its infection and glories in the blood spilled.

But this time, there is another casualty that cannot be ignored. It is our nation — our very democracy.

There have been four presidents who died by an assassin’s gun. Those were not the only attempts to smother democracy by silencing a political voice. It is not the first failed attempt. They know no party. U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Arizona, was shot in the head at an event in Tucson in 2011. U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana, was shot at a Congressional baseball practice in 2017.

But not since the 1968 shooting of U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy has an attempt like this been made on a presidential campaign. It comes at a time of deep divisions, both political and cultural, in our country and in our world.

We must get up. We must carry on. The Republican National Convention takes place this week. The Democratic convention comes on its heels. We plunge headfirst into what might be the most important presidential election in our nation’s 248 years. And Pennsylvania is now the site of our most recent political violence and the home of our most divided electorate.

This time, democracy must stand up to violence. Democracy must draw a line in the sand and say “no more.”

Americans and Pennsylvanians must reject violence and all it stands for by not just turning our backs on the blood and the death and the chaos. We must resolve to not give in to it by allowing it to influence the process.

Hear your candidate. Advocate for your choices. Cast your votes based on what you believe to be true and right.

Democracy and violence cannot coexist. We must all choose democracy.