Dark Days, Old Wounds
Darkness is not new to America, nor is endurance.
Note: Yesterday, I said Ted Cruz would be up for re-election in 2028. That was wrong. It’s 2030.
Today has been a heavy day. My sixteen-year-old cat passed away this afternoon. About thirty minutes later, the other news broke. Charlie Kirk has been assassinated at the age of 31.
There are a few voices on the left making antagonizing videos or celebrating. Not many, but enough to notice. It’s only fanning the flames further. On the right, the reaction has gone full-blown apocalyptic. Fox News is practically calling for civil war. Twitter feels like early 2021 all over again, maybe worse. Darker days are coming.
Listen to Hasan Piker’s commentary on Trump’s Oval Office address:
I had planned to spend today writing about why Democratic congressional candidates should run unapologetically on universal healthcare. That will have to wait. Right now, I want to talk about something else.
We need to keep our heads up. Pay attention to your surroundings. Stay safe. Take care of yourselves and each other.
America has always been a violent country. We like to pretend otherwise, but from its beginning, political violence has been stitched into the fabric. We remember Lincoln and JFK, but there were others. Garfield, McKinley, Robert Kennedy, and Dr. King.
In 1856, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts delivered a speech against slavery. Two days later, Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina walked onto the Senate floor and bludgeoned Sumner with a cane until he collapsed, bleeding and unconscious. It took years for Sumner to recover, and the attack became one of the most infamous symbols of how deep and violent America’s political divides had grown before the Civil War.
In the 1930s, Louisiana Senator Huey Long was gunned down inside the State Capitol in Baton Rouge. Long had built a national following with his “Share Our Wealth” program and was positioning himself as a challenger to FDR. His assassination by a political opponent ended his rise abruptly, leaving behind both a powerful legacy of economic populism and a reminder of how often political disputes in America have turned deadly.
In 1972, while campaigning for the presidency, Alabama Governor George Wallace was shot five times at a rally in Maryland. The attack left him paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life. Wallace, infamous for his staunch defense of segregation, remained in politics after the shooting but never regained the national momentum he once had. Another reminder that American politics has often spilled over into deadly violence.
It wasn’t only assassinations. There were church bombings, school bombings, and the firebombing of homes. And if you are Black, or Indigenous, or queer in this country, perhaps that violence never felt like “history” at all. Maybe it was, and still is, part of your daily reality.
The temperature in this country is hot, very hot. I don’t have all the right words today. But I want to leave you with some from James Talarico, who spoke earlier this afternoon:
Hold on to one another. The days ahead may be dark, but America has lived through dark days before.
November 4: Constitutional/TX18/SD09 Election
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One of my friends litrally experienced a panic attack after 8 hours when it happened. It was so shocking to him that he couldnt process until several hours and when he did the panic attacks started. He asked me, how are you not anxious and afraid. Arent you scared? The funny thing is, i really am not scared because i was expecting more political violence to happen across party lines and there a lot of countries i am educated about where this has become political reality. Mexico is a perfect example. They elected their first left wing jewish woman president who is doing good things but what hasnt been mentioned that during that election there were about 37 candidates that were politically assassinated across the aisle including lawmakers from the president own party. MORENA has dealt with this for 10 years. The only thing that is different is the U.S is starting to experience this reality in the modern day era.
Thank you again. I had been so worried about our warriors but most especially Beto then got over it. It has come screaming back. You know one of the crazier MAGAs are going to retaliate. I just wish Trump had said more when the Hartman's had been brutally murdered, or even lowered the flag for one day or more. He refused to lower to flag for Jimmy Carter for the expected time. So while MAGA reveres an otherwise apparent hater, I am just sad and hoping the violence does not accelerate.