The recent attempt on Donald Trump's life is appalling. The subsequent commentary is exasperating. I start reading each of the editorials and essays I come across, only to stop after a few lines and impatiently skim the rest in search of something that cuts through the usual lamenting of what "we as a society" have come to and the pointing-out that this is no way to solve problems. It seems that the authors, when confronted with such an occurrence, are occupationally compelled to put in their thumbs and pull out plums of general meaning.
Here, the general story being told is that of a polarization balloon that was blown up bigger — and bigger — and bigger — until boom! it produced this. But there is no such linear progression. Ever since Donald Trump became president-elect in 2016, there must have been millions of people wishing with resolute vagueness that something would make him go away and marveling that no one had acted on the wish as far as we knew. There must have been more than a few who made up their minds to act but couldn't manage it. The other day, someone happened to manage it. It was not the culmination of an advancing social disease.
I'm reminded of the "sick society" trope that was so much in vogue in the 1960s. It was typified by the reaction to the murder of Kitty Genovese and the mythical (later debunked) indifference of neighbors who supposedly "didn't want to get involved." For a long time thereafter, it was one of the givens of commentary and conversation that people (present company always excepted) were no longer willing to get involved in each other's troubles. Assassinations were similarly treated as evidence of a collective sickness.
As for polarization, study after study has shown that ordinary Americans are not polarized in their values but have been made prone to "affective polarization" — emotional aversion to people of different party affiliations — by misleading information and overwrought rhetoric. One thing I will say about cause and effect is that if a demagogue personifies chaos and threatens opponents with retribution, it does become marvelous that years go by without an assassination attempt. I have no objection to blaming the opponents as well when they've hysterically exploited the demagogue's bluster instead of setting an example of sanity.
And as for the would-be assassin acting alone, who knows what causal web produced the effect? Each such individual is, after all, an individual with personal demons.
