It Would Have Been Worse if Trump Had Been Killed — BCB #110

How America got caught in an escalation cycle, and where we go from here.

Last weekend’s assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump laid bare the consequences of living in an increasingly polarized country. We are caught in an escalation cycle, a series of feedback loops wherein conflict spirals into bigger, more serious, conflict. 

Fortunately, our polarization is also based on misperceptions. Almost no one in America condones the use of political violence—though each side thinks that the other side does. And there are things we can each, individually, can do. Breaking this cycle won’t be easy, because it requires building better relations with the “other side” rather than insulating ourselves from it, at exactly the moment when this seems wrong and dangerous.

Escalation cycles are how polarization increases; they’re how we got to this point, over decades. As Heidi and Guy Burgess put it, people gravitate towards those who share their beliefs. Each group complains about and lashes out at the other, reinforcing everyone’s worst assumptions.

This cycle of tit-for-tat responses increases our anger, fear and distrust, and contributes to a growing sense of urgency. We need to act now to subdue them, or else terrible things will happen! (Ironically, this is an urgent situation that needs quick action—not against them, but against escalation! But people caught up in these dynamics seldom see it this way.)

Here’s one picture of the escalation cycle, from researcher Randall Collins. A climate of confrontational tension and fear eventually results in “atrocities”—like a shooter pulling the trigger at a rally. This in turn leads to greater conflict, as each side closes ranks and marginalizes those with cooler heads. We’re already seeing this on the Red side.

(Source)

In the days after the shooting, many on the left wished that Trump had been killed. Some said it publicly. While such a sentiment is abhorrent to Trump supporters—how do Democrats feel hearing calls for Biden’s death?—this is an understandable emotion. It’s a very human reaction to Blue’s worst fears of another Trump presidency.

But if the assassination attempt had succeeded, things would almost certainly be a lot worse. Everything we know about conflict shows that atrocities lead to more atrocities, the central feedback loop of the diagram above. There’s no telling what chain of reprisals and counter-reprisals an assassination would trigger.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t real issues at stake, from green energy to gun ownership. There’s a lot riding on this election! But as escalation increases, the goals of conflict shift from doing well to hurting the other side. Destructive conflict does not advance anyone’s policy goals. Winning through violence is an illusion.

Violence is still a fringe position

Acts of political violence often end up fortifying ideological polarization. People lock into their “us” versus “them” mindsets, and may immediately assume that a perpetrator of political violence is representative of an entire side. This too is very human: whenever a group member does something bad, we immediately have an argument over individual vs. group blame.

Yet it seems likely this shooter was a lone actor, and the FBI has yet to identify a clear motive for his actions. (According to state records he was registered as a Republican.) Moreover, Americans massively overestimate the other side’s support for political violence, according to a recent study by the Polarization Research Lab. Sean Westwood, an associate professor at Dartmouth who led the study, said:

Americans have a fundamentally incorrect understanding of support for partisan violence … Democrats think 45.5% of Republicans support partisan murder, which is 20.7 times larger than what our data show. Similarly, Republicans think 42% of Democrats support partisan murder, which is 25 times larger than reality.

In reality, fewer than 4% of surveyed Americans support violent crimes like assault or arson against political opponents, and almost no Americans support politically-motivated murder, the study shows. Democrats show slightly higher levels of support for this type of partisan violence at 2.1%, as compared to Republicans at 1.8%.

After the events of last week Westwood doubled down on his research, urging people to remember that a single atrocity does not represent the whole nation:

Although it might not feel like it today, political violence is exceptionally uncommon in America. Partisan violence has increased in the last decade, but: 1) it is *still rare*, and 2) we are nowhere near the peak we saw in the last century.

Green line shows incidents of partisan violence per year. (Source)

What you can do

If the escalation cycle has crescendoed to a real-life atrocity, and Americans have come to believe that their political opponents would incite violence even though all signs indicate that almost no one wants this, where do we go from here?

Starts With Us has a few useful suggestions for de-escalating in the wake of last week’s assassination attempt:

1. Consider how emotions are affecting our reactions. One way to do this is to do a “turnabout test”: imagine if Biden had been shot instead. How would you react? How do you think others would react? This exercise can help us notice how bias and emotions may be making our or others’ takes less reasonable and more divisive.

2. Don’t equate the actions of individuals with entire political groups. Conflict can make us see our adversaries as a unified, monolithic mass. This can lead to conflating bad actions done by individuals (like the shooter) with whole groups. This drives toxicity and contempt.

3. Be vigilant of false information and conspiracy theories. Big, emotion-producing events often lead to a flood of bad information, some of which will (intentionally or not) increase anger and fear. When you see information that provokes anger or fear, look into it more to ensure it’s true and that important nuance isn’t missing.

4. Push back on divisive behaviors. Be courageous in criticizing divisive, dehumanizing rhetoric where you find it — especially among your political allies. We’ll have the most influence and impact in our own “in-group.”

This last point is especially crucial. Now would be a great time to take up what Peter Coleman dubbed the “political courage challenge”: a series of small exercises and actions, one a day for four weeks, which help people productively challenge their in-group and build better relationships with those on the other side.

It seems impossible, foolhardy, counter-intuitive, and frightening to contemplate closer connections to the other side at a time like this—which is precisely why we are trapped in escalating conflict. If it was natural to do the things required to repair our politics, we wouldn’t be here. We need unnatural acts of courage, understanding and kindness. And it requires going against your peer group—your friends won’t approve, not at first. The right actions will feel materially risky but spiritually right.

Quote of the Week

We’ve actually been through worse. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, and in the early-to-mid 1990s, the amount of political violence, including assassination, was significantly higher in the U.S. than it is today. We are now in a situation, again, where we are confronted with worsening polarization and, in some measures, increasing political violence. There’s certainly no room for complacency. All of us really need to look at our behavior and ask ourselves, “Are we creating the society we want to live in?”

— Michael Kenney