After Trump shooting, calm the rhetoric and take politics away from the crazies | Opinion

The sickening attempt on former President Donald Trump’s life Saturday becomes even more horrifying when you consider this: It’s only July.

We have nearly four months left in this bitter presidential campaign, and then the aftermath of extremists on either side possibly reacting to a loss with more violence. God forbid we see another attempt on either candidate. The country cannot take it.

President Joe Biden spoke Sunday of the need for unity. That’s a misplaced goal. The American family is too divided on too many weighty matters to meet in the same church, let alone sing from the same hymnal.

In the short term, however, all can choose to tamp down anger and division, rather than whip it up. Any leader who doesn’t condemn political violence and the rhetoric that helps fuel it is part of the problem.

All must also accept responsibility for their roles in getting us here, whether active or passive, and pledge to do better. Voters then must hold them accountable.

Donald Trump is not Adolf Hitler. Joe Biden does not want to “trans your kids.” The country will not end if either is elected. We’ve survived much worse presidents before.

In the long term, the vast middle of the American body politic must vow to take our politics back from those who have used anger and fear to push us to the edge of the abyss. That doesn’t mean everyone has to become a moderate. Conservatives and liberals will battle for their beliefs, and that’s appropriate.

But we must address the flawed process that got us to this point, by wresting influence away from those who profit — politically and financially — by cranking up the heat on every political debate and election.

It’s not a coincidence that this same process left us with two candidates most people don’t like and many don’t feel are fit to be president. The most divisive among us drive party primaries, and the result is two polarized groups always in a frenzy while the rest of us look around and say: How did that happen?

It is always hard to tell how much rhetoric figures into any individual’s decisions. We’ve debated for decades the effect that violent movies and TV, music and video games might have on real-world actions. We can say, though, that years of coarsened rhetoric and forecasts of apocalyptic doom if an election goes the wrong way have had an effect. Politics was never pretty, but these days, it’s downright ugly.

Details about the 20-year-old who attempted to assassinate Trump are scant. We can’t even be sure yet his motive was entirely political. A peer told NBC News that he was frequently bullied. So, in addition to the political atmospheric problem, we once again see evidence that lonely, aggrieved young men with access to firearms are a constant threat.

There is grave danger in what lies ahead. Our political habits are so entrenched, the rhetoric could snap back to escalating rather than relieving pressure in no time.

But there is also an opportunity. Biden, Trump, congressional leaders, governors — all must step back from the corrosive tools that have become second nature in politics. They must fight the substantive battles without so much vitriol. They must condemn the ideas of an opponent without elevating them to a looming threat that must be stopped, whatever it takes. And voters must hold them accountable for a better political climate.

Pray for the leaders you like to take the right path. And pray even harder for the ones you don’t to do the same.