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We Do Not Condone Political Violence; Also, This Does Not Change Anything

Writer's picture: Victoria L. NadelVictoria L. Nadel

During the presidential campaign in 1972, third party “Dixiecrat” candidate George Wallace ran to Richard Nixon’s right.  Arthur Bremer shot Wallace on the campaign trail in 1972. The injury was devastating. Wallace was paralyzed from the waist down. Wallace suspended his presidential campaign. However, the bullet did not change Wallace's fitness for the presidency; he would have been horrendous as Commander in Chief.


Bremer shot Wallace after he realized his "first choice” target was inaccessible. Bremer really wanted to kill Richard Nixon, but he just could not get close enough.


Nixon would go on to win the 1972 election in a landslide, beating George McGovern in every state but Massachusetts (seriously, America – it is never our fault). Within a year, Nixon’s Vice President, Spiro Agnew, would resign in disgrace, having committed several crimes when he was Governor of Maryland.  He would ultimately plead nolo contendere to a tax evasion charge. He never went to prison and all other charges were dropped or not pursued. As an aside, no one ever suggested for a moment that he would be immune from criminal activity due to his executive office as governor of Maryland or that his status as a former Vice President should somehow shield him from criminal responsibility. The Maryland Bar found Agnew unfit to retain his law license and he was disbarred.


Agnew was an incredible racist, anti-Semite, puritanical narcissist, and criminal (even though he would later argue that he was totally innocent of all of the offenses that resulted in his resignation.) He was a truly horrible man – and one of the founders of the brutal far right authoritarian political movement which has now overtaken the Republican party.


Nixon would be gone less than a year after Agnew, resigning rather than becoming the first president to be impeached in the House and convicted in the Senate. The votes were there for that as the Republicans in both houses of Congress sought to distance themselves from the Watergate scandal.


But, back to the assassination attempt and sympathy for the victim juxtaposed with fitness for office: Nixon was Bremer’s first choice for the bullet that would ultimately find George Wallace. George Wallace was an avowed segregationist and racist. But, by many accounts, the shooting changed him. Wallace was permanently disabled but would continue on as governor of Alabama and he would get re-elected several times. He spent many years seeking forgiveness from the African American community. Whether it was a genuine change of heart is impossible to know. It is unclear what Bremer was trying to do by shooting Wallace, but whatever it was, it failed to succeed.


Bremer went to prison for 35 years and is alive and out in the community right now. But, no one remembers him except members of George Wallace’s family. Nixon is dead. Wallace is dead. Racism is very much alive. One important point, however, is that the bullet and catastrophic injury did not make George Wallace a hero. It did not change his years of railing against basic decency and humanity for all people. It did not elevate him to a more viable candidate to lead America. It was tragic. As dozens of electeds have recently declared, political violence has no place in a democracy of ordered liberty, no matter how awful the candidate is.


Nobody should have aimed a firearm at Donald Trump and pulled the trigger. That act is inexcusable. But, just because someone did shoot at him does not change a single solitary thing about Trump and his unfitness for any elected office, especially the presidency. Similarly, just because he did not misstate a few things and ramble off a little in a debate through which he lied in nearly every response he made does not mean that Trump “won” the debate or “performed well”.  Biden has terrible advisors; he never should have debated him at all, if he did debate, he should not have been fed a million facts that he cannot remember and Americans cannot process, and a decent cadre of advisors would have reminded him to crack a joke or two rather than seek to find a zinger. Finally, they should have insisted on a collaboration with Politifact to post in real time on screen what is true and what is false. But, I digress.


Wallace running as a segregationist candidate is almost quaint when compared with Trump running on (and at the same time distancing himself from) Project 2025.


It is terrible that Trump was shot at a campaign rally and worse that innocent people were killed and wounded there. But it does not change anything about who he is, whether he should be elected, and the very real plans he has to be dictator and tear down ever decent institution in America and the world. If he had continued to speak, he would be spewing hate worse than Spiro Agnew and more profound than George Wallace. And, because his following – incomprehensibly – is utterly committed to him and his fascist messaging, close to half of the nation has moved away from democracy and toward a terrifying vision of this nation that bears no resemblance to anything our Founders imagined or would wish for.


And it bears no resemblance to the beacon of hope that America has tried to be since its very inception.


When the campaign talks about making America “great again”, they are talking about the America First movement and actual Nazi rallies in Madison Square Garden. When his supporters are talking about making America “great again”, they are really talking about the comprehensive programs Democrats have run on and won on from the New Deal to the New Frontier to the Great Society - federal programs to promote equality, to provide assistance for food and health care and housing for those who struggle economically. Even Nixon understood that – he was talking about expanding these programs in order to enshrine his legacy, not abolishing them.


These were far from perfect men and far from perfect policies, but Franklin Roosevelt sought to help people in need and calm a nation at war; John Kennedy sought to inspire people to think beyond their own personal goals and work for something greater than themselves; and Lyndon Baines Johnson strong armed a reluctant Congress to inch us closer as a nation to enacting in law the immortal words of the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence. Trump spews hate, authoritarianism, destruction of any person or institution that does not bow down to him in fealty, and absolutely nothing remotely connected to the American ideals of democracy, compromise, improving lives, and liberty. Getting shot did not make Wallace a better candidate and it does not make Trump one.

 

 

 

 

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