Rep. Chris Deluzio: All patriots must condemn political violence

This week, President Donald Trump threatened my life because he did not like the constitutional truths I spoke. Threats of political violence are not how we solve disagreements in the United States of America. Those threats incite violence, and it only snowballs from there. But know this: I will not be intimidated.

This is bigger than me or others who were targeted. Political violence threatens the foundational principle that we — Americans and Pennsylvanians — can govern ourselves and live with liberty in our noble pursuit of happiness. I am calling on everyone to condemn these violent threats. We need to collectively turn the temperature down — before it’s too late.

I love this country of ours. I first raised my hand and swore an oath to the Constitution when I was 17 years old, starting at the United States Naval Academy less than a year after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It’s the same oath I swore when I had the honor of being elected our congressman: to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic.” This is a lifelong oath, and I intend to keep it.

A few days ago, I put out a video with several of my congressional colleagues who are also veterans or former intelligence officers. In it, we restated the fundamental truths that the oath that service members swear is to the Constitution, and that they — who are required to obey legal orders — cannot be required to follow illegal ones. This is a basic lesson our troops learn, whether at Naval Academy Plebe Summer (as I did), boot camp or wherever they start their time in uniform.

In response to this message, Trump publicly called for my hanging. It is outrageous — and telling — that the president considers it punishable by death for someone like me to restate the bedrock principle that the Constitution is the highest authority in the country. The president is the leader of the free world with the loudest microphone: his words matter.

In response to the president’s posts, I have received death threats and have had to ramp up security for myself, my wife and our young children. Two of my offices in Western Pennsylvania received bomb threats Friday. Thankfully, local law enforcement responded swiftly, and everyone is safe.

But this isn’t about me, my team or any of my colleagues. This is not even about politics. This is about who we are as Americans. In times like these, everyone, and especially elected leaders, must be clear in saying all forms of political violence are wrong. That should not be hard to do.

I spoke up and condemned the killing of Charlie Kirk and the attempted assassinations of then-candidate Donald Trump and Gov. Josh Shapiro. I would do it again: it was the right thing to do.

Silence in the face of threatened political violence is cowardice. It is unacceptable to cherry-pick which instances of political violence should be condemned and which can be meekly ignored. They are all dangerous. Selective condemnation normalizes these calls for violence against the “other.”

The truth is, there is no “other.” We may think about things differently, and we can disagree passionately — no doubt — but we are bound together as Americans. In a democracy, patriotic Americans do not respond to free speech with violence. In a democracy, patriots do not solve our disagreements with bullets: we solve them at the ballot box.

I know who we are here in Western Pennsylvania: good, hardworking, patriotic people who want this country to succeed.

In one of the threats Trump leveled against me, he said that because of my message, “we won’t have a country anymore.” The president is dead wrong: his words, his recklessness, his willingness to threaten arrest and the killing of his political opponents for restating the law is what tears at the fabric of our constitutional republic.

I believe in the common good and that we are all in this together — the grand American experiment based on a simple and radical idea: We can govern ourselves.

But we must acknowledge our shared humanity. As Robert F. Kennedy Sr. said after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “Those who live with us are our brothers… they seek — as we do — nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.”

This is a time for moral clarity. In this moment, every elected leader and every American should unite and condemn the President’s threats against me and others. Political violence — and the dark shadow that such threats cast — divides us, undermines law and order, and threatens the fabric of our democracy. I know that our love of country is stronger than this assault on self-government and that we will prevail as Americans.

There is much work to do to meet the full promise of America, and I intend to do it. I will continue to give my all to represent the people of Pennsylvania who sent me to Congress. I will uphold my sacred oath to the Constitution, I will not be intimidated by these threats and I will never give up the ship.

Rep. Chris Deluzio represents Pennsylvania’s 17th District in the U.S. House of Representatives and is a Navy and Iraq War veteran.