[jkic47]

How the hell did we get here?

At a fundamental level, we seem to have lost our sense of what Democracy means.

The rules are "I can think you are crass, wrong, bigoted, geriatric, etc., but if a majority of my countrymen think otherwise, we accept we are not successful in the battle of ideas, and fight another battle of ideas in 4 years". Unless this is a lone, unstable individual, it is more evidence that our system needs more balance.

Truly sad that we've descended to this level

[daseiner1]

This is a horrible thing, but sadly nothing new. Pardon the Wikipedia block quote:

> Four sitting presidents have been killed: Abraham Lincoln (1865, by John Wilkes Booth), James A. Garfield (1881, by Charles J. Guiteau), William McKinley (1901, by Leon Czolgosz), and John F. Kennedy (1963, by Lee Harvey Oswald). Additionally, two presidents have been injured in attempted assassinations: former president Theodore Roosevelt (1912, by John Schrank) and Ronald Reagan (1981, by John Hinckley Jr.)

If anything we’ve been “overdue”.

[dredmorbius]

Excepting Eisenhower and Johnson, every US president (or president-elect) has been subject to an assassination attempt dating back nearly a century to Herbert Hoover (1929--1933).

Shots have been fired at FDR, Truman, Kennedy(†), Ford, Reagan, Clinton, and yesterday.

Bombs or explosives have been placed or deployed against Hoover, Truman, Kennedy, GHW Bush, Clinton, GW Bush, and Obama.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presiden...>

[gnicholas]

It's not very common in the modern era, though I would add in RFK Sr., who was assassinated while running for president several decades ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Robert_F._Ken...

[LarsDu88]

6/45 presidents have been shot today.

Today that number is 7/45

So it went from 13% to 15%. Not only that, but firearms technology has advanced considerably. If anything, statistically speaking we've been incredibly lucky in the past 30 years

[LocalH]

"And what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure." - Thomas Jefferson, 1787

[comfysocks]

Maybe, but hopefully we can move towards a future with more voting and less violence.

[therealdrag0]

Multiple Attacks and attempted attacks have happened in last 10 years even. A far right winger sent 16 mail bombs to democrats (including Biden and Obama) in 2018, and a dozen men tried to nap Michigan governed.

[poikroequ]

Did you not see the insurrection on the capital just a few years ago? People chanting Hang Mike Pence? How about the person who blew up a small part of downtown Nashville one Christmas morning because lizard people? There's lots of lunatics out there, plenty to go around.

[krapp]

>The rules are "I can think you are crass, wrong, bigoted, geriatric, etc., but if a majority of my countrymen think otherwise, we accept we are not successful in the battle of ideas, and fight another battle of ideas in 4 years".

Trump was never supported, much less elected, by a majority of Americans. He didn't even get the majority of votes in the election he won. The American political system was explicitly designed not to empower the will of the majority, because that would have been an existential threat to the status quo (slavery) at the time.

And while it might be nice to claim that we should be civil participants in a battle of ideas, it would be naive to ignore the effect of centuries of gun culture and polarizing neo-reactionary rhetoric on American politics. Regardless of what the founding fathers may have intended (and notwithstanding that they disagreed on many things) a lot of Americans believe political violence is a necessity and a virtue. They lecture people on the virtues of guns after every school shooting, and speak wistfully about "watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants."

America has been edging itself with talk of a "cold civil war" for years now. It's like a morbid game of chicken.

[oceanplexian]

> The American political system was explicitly designed not to empower the will of the majority, because that would have been an existential threat to the status quo (slavery) at the time.

This whole retelling of history exclusively through the lens of the slavery is getting super old. It is divisive, it’s a form of revisionist history, and it’s wrong.

Read about the Northwest Ordinance, the provisions in it banning slavery in the 1780s were ultimately adopted verbatim into the Thirteenth Amendment. Or the actions of the founders including John Adams who put their lives on the line to fight against slavery. And the numerous states that made it illegal at the time of the nation’s founding.

There’s a lot more to history than the over-simplified retelling about how the radical pace of social change in the 18th century wasn’t somehow fast enough for our 2024 sensibilities.

[SamPatt]

The founders feared the will of the majority partially because they saw the instability in France and recognized the dangers of mob rule.

Within a few years of the drafting of the constitution, the reign of terror began.

The majority isn't always right.

[erellsworth]

Looks like you're getting down voted a lot for this but it's all true. Trump only became president because the electoral college weighs geography higher than population. So does the senate.

[winternett]

I don't know if we can honestly ask how did we get here... January 6th was just one of many shining beacons to let us know that this issue was a powder keg.

Social Media has added a layer of deep disinformation & divisive ideological bubbles that are all largely going unchecked as well, where anyone can be anyone, and where it can be quite profitable for personalities to become incendiary... We're really not holding anyone, nor the bodies managing social media and news media accountable for their actions at all, which opens the doors to sensationalism, and even to embellishment on issues which are normally meant to be commonplace and handled professionally.

I think everyone has had fair warning that the rhetoric would lead to more drama, and the country has ignored it in a quest to line pockets. Politics are meant to be boring, and in order to serve Democracy, it simply can't ignore and even encroach on basic rights of others it represents. We have gone too far in political extremes, and this is the end result, slowly getting worse over time.

It's clear that we need to stop making personal servants celebrities, and to stop watching and pushing politics as if it's a TV drama or Football game, otherwise it's only going to get worse... That being said, there is a lot more organization and agendas involved in politics now than in the past.

Technology now is widely being used against everyone to achieve and monitor goals and progress in capturing profit... Sometimes as tech insiders, we have to be careful about what we implement and even say "no" as a response to being asked to do things that undermine people and the ethical balance of the world.

Profiting off of tech is not good if it makes the world we all live in deeply unstable. There's no castle, even in Maui, that anyone can build to survive political and economic collapse of the country nor the world. There is a better way to do all of this.

[PicassoCTs]

>"..and fight another battle of ideas in 4 years"

The assassination target promised loudly and repeatedly, it would not adhere to that. This a vote for him would be the last vote. Guy may as well have be another https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Elser if trump gets to power against the mummified establishment figure.

[ElectronCharge]

You are misinformed.

[tithe]

I think part of the answer is how you phrased the situation yourself, as a "battle of ideas."

The rhetoric by both "left" and "right" platforms pitches a divided America, and a "battle for the soul of the nation." Battle against whom? My own countrymen? For what? For my vision for America? I was unsettled when I heard this (but maybe I'm just too sensitive.)

When you combine this kind of inflammatory speech with blanket group classifications like "liberals" or "MAGA" or "democrats" or whatever, you've now identified an enemy in this "battle", and as I've seen lately, can completely lose sight that these people are our countrymen too.

[AnimalMuppet]

The language on both sides is apocalyptic - if we don't win this election, it's the end of America! And you have to fight for your country, or you won't have one! It's a war!

Well, if you call it a war enough times, sooner or later somebody will take you literally.

[trealira]

Well, it's a battle for control over the courts, for control over the administrative state, for control over the school systems, for control over the election systems. This is why judge appointments got so strained in the last 15 years, why the Heritage Foundation wants to take back the federal government with Project 2025 (by firing 2 million federal employees en masse), why conservatives are so concerned about indoctrination in schools, and about attacking the Deep State. It's also why Democrats are campaigning on keeping democracy from ending, and keeping elections free.

[mistermann]

"our countrymen" is yet another category.

Unskilled and unaware of it categorization is a major component of the collective hallucination we've been taught to call reality.

That said: I do not disagree with you. This planet is out of control.

[lolinder]

We got here because both sides have for the last 8 years consistently failed to treat one another as human beings with opinions rather than the literal devil incarnate.

There are a substantial number of people on this forum who sincerely believe that if Trump is elected there will not be another election. If enough people sincerely believe that, one of them will eventually decide that it's worth it to sacrifice their own life to ensure the survival of democracy in America.

[Larrikin]

There were 16 years of bad faith negotiations from one side

[IAmGraydon]

That's correct. And the idea that Trump will end democracy is a core part of the left's fear campaign. They share responsibility for this.

[bitnasty]

Trump tried to cling to power once after losing a fair election. You don’t think he’ll try again?

[lolinder]

I realize the phrase "both sides" is triggering for anyone who sees the other side as completely insane and their side as correct and rational, but I stand by what I said. I live among rabid right-wingers and work among rabid left-wingers, and neither group sees the other as anything other than evil or stupidly deluded.

They're both wrong on that front and both need to stop and actually try to understand each other before we see more violence.

[Yawrehto]

>How the hell did we get here?...Truly sad that we've descended to this level.

By the way, sorry that this comment is so long.

This level of violence isn't new. This has never been new. There's always been stuff like this. Yes, today's era of political polarization is bad, but the US seems to go through cycles of great polarization and regrettably frequent violence followed by fairly calm periods - at least by one metric (e.g, by 'civil wars' 1860-65 was the worst, but if you measured by violent labor strikes the late 1800s-early 1900s were). Thus you get the American Revolution, then a period of relative calm, then the years leading up to the Civil War and the Civil War itself. Then a period of relative quiet, followed by the much smaller strikes, which often turned violent, as well as pogroms against blacks. Then relative quiet, then Vietnam, Civil Rights, etc.

Summary of the data following: Proceeding in fifty-year intervals back from 2020-July 13,2024, ending at 1770-July 13, 1774, this era placed #2 in civil unrest, but #4 out of 6 - ie, below average - in a broader category, counting coups, massacres, civil unrest, rebellions, worker deaths due to labor disputes, and racial violence.

For a sense of the persistence of it, look at Wikipedia's page[1]. In fact, if anything, it seems to be slowing down; Wikipedia (thus far) lists 17 incidents from 2020-2024 (inclusive). Scrolling 50, 100, 150, 200, etc. years back shows the following:

50 years ago [1970-July 13,1974]: 28 (!)

100 years ago [1920-July 13,1924]: 9.

150 years ago [1870-July 13,1874]: 10. Again, possibly an underestimate.

200 years ago [1820-July 13,1824]: 0. This is almost certainly an underestimate, but it's how many Wikipedia lists.

250 years ago [1770-July 13, 1774]: 5[2]

So, we're the second-highest. However, Wikipedia also helpfully has lists of coup attempts, massacres, etc. So! [Note that this includes things that partially include that time period, e.g., the American Revolution, and larger things, e.g., the Black Panthers. This is from Wikipedia; you can edit it if you want. The version I'm using is accurate as of when I'm writing this]

Combined number of coups[3], massacres[4], civil unrest[1][2], rebellions[5], worker deaths "from labor disputes"[counts incidents, not individual deaths] [6], and racial violence[7] [may have some double counting], moving in 50 year intervals back from 2020-July 13,2024:

2020-July 13,2024: Coup attempts: 2, massacres: 3, civil unrest: 17, rebellions: 2, worker deaths: 0, racial violence: 1 [it lumps police brutality together; you're welcome to object]. Total: 25.

1970-July 13,1974: coups: 0, massacres: 1, civil unrest: 28, rebellions: 5, worker deaths: 0, racial violence: 15. Total: 49.

1920-July 13,1924: Coups: 0, Massacres: 6, Civil unrest: 9, rebellions: 1 [Coal Wars], worker deaths: 14, racial violence: 7 [doesn't count KKK as overarching thing]. Total: 37

1870-July 13,1874: Coups: 1 [state], Massacres: 3, Civil unrest: 10, rebellions: 0, worker deaths: 1, racial violence: 12, Total: 27

1820-July 13,1824: Coups: 0, Massacres: 0, Civil unrest: 0 [somehow], rebellions: 0, worker deaths: 0, racial violence: 1, not including slavery. Total: 1

1770-July 13,1774: Coups: 0, Massacres: 1, Civil unrest: 5, rebellions: 2 [includes American revolution], worker deaths: 0, racial violence: 0, not counting slavery. Total: 8.

So we come in at position #4 out of 6. A reasonable argument could be made that we're actually BELOW average currently.

[1] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unrest_in_the_United_States.

[2] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unrest_in_Colonial_North_America

[3] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coups_and_coup_attempts_by_country#United_States [this counts state-level attempts]

[4] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_the_United_States. Erratic about which mass shootings it includes.

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rebellions_in_the_Unit...

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_worker_deaths_in_Unite...

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_racial_violence_in_the_Un...

[matrix87]

> Unless this is a lone, unstable individual, it is more evidence that our system needs more balance.

When is it ever not? A lot easier to believe than a bunch of handwavey "across the aisle" garbage

[tibbydudeza]

It eerily reminds me of the dialogue scene from that recent movie.

Journalists: We are Americans.

Soldier: What kind of American are you ???.

[shrimp_emoji]

That was an edgy trailer cut. In the movie, he clarified "South American, Central American...?" He wanted to know if they were from the U.S. and kill them if they weren't. (That's why he only shot the two Asians.)

[trealira]

Sorry, what movie is this? I don't watch many movies.

[hulitu]

> How the hell did we get here?

Too many guns ? Too much interference of the CIA ?

> At a fundamental level, we seem to have lost our sense of what Democracy means.

What means democracy ? Rich people buying politicians to promote laws which will make them richer ? A bunch of "citizens" sending other "citizens" to die "for their country" so some assholes can increase profits ?

[remarkEon]

>How the hell did we get here?

Since 2016 about half the country has been fed a steady stream of rhetoric that seeks to define Trump as a literal - not figurative or metaphorical - existential threat to "our democracy". A Hitler 2.0 or worse, and the mark of Fascism finally coming to the United States.

If you take those arguments at face value, and really and truly believe they are true, then it is unsurprising that someone took a shot at "New Hitler". Because why wouldn't someone do that if it was true?

Of course it isn't true, and even the people who say this stuff don't believe it[1].

[1] https://x.com/Timodc/status/1811136469911711877

[mrguyorama]

If you think "threat to our democracy" rhetoric started "from the left" in 2016, you should go lookup what Fox News has been saying for decades.

War on christmas? War on Christianity? Obama isn't even a real american so he is an illegitimate president? "They're coming for our children"? Christ that one regularly gets drag story time cleared out due to violent threats. How dare someone read a book to a child while wearing a dress.

Or maybe you forget the decades of bombing abortion clinics?

You know we USED to have violent hard left organizations like the Black Panthers and Weather Underground. Now the right has to wave vaguely at "auntie fa", a "group" as real as "anonymous".

[archagon]

Would you recognize a literal Hitler in the making if you were around in the 1930’s? Plenty of people didn’t, or didn’t care. There was nothing particularly special about the man: just a hateful, populist asshole who gathered a disproportionate amount of power. Politics as normal until they weren’t.

We can’t know for sure who will become a monster when handed unfettered power, but we can take a pretty good guess. And there are few people in American politics who are as hateful, vindictive, and anti-democratic as Trump.

[zarathustreal]

Those are the stated rules, let’s be clear about that. The actual rules are that there are no rules.

Painting an election by popular vote as a “battle of ideas” is falling into the all-too-common trap of thinking that we are rational agents. I can’t even begin to expand on how incorrect that is.

Even a little bit of candid consideration would uncover the truth of this. Political ads aren’t logical arguments. They’re emotional appeals. Hell, “he should be in charge because he’s most popular” is itself an ad populum argument. It’s nonsense to begin with.

[proc0]

He has been compared to Hitler countless times, and was demonized by the media for years, meanwhile his supporters were dismissed as lunatics and conspiracy theorists when this is pointed out.

We literally almost had civil war or at least a real insurrection today.

[EasyMark]

We don’t even know the motives of the shooter yet. Let’s not hyperventilate and give it a few days, there will be a drip drip drip of info, he probably has a trail online, they usually do.

[meiraleal]

Now people are repeatedly telling this to justify the shooting. People will do everything besides think they might be in the wrong.

[ImJamal]

If that is a fear, then maybe don't kill him until he actually has done the thing you fear. Killing somebody before they do the bad thing seems like killing people for thought crimes.

[skissane]

> Because many are concerned Trump will never leave office if elected again, which is arguably a fair concern based on his previous actions.

If Trump wins in November, he'll be 82 years old by the time his second term is over. Do you think, at 82, Trump will actually want a third term? I think he'll be glad to retire, and enjoy playing the role of kingmaker in anointing his successor.

[systemvoltage]

Today, I change my vote and will vote for Republicans for the first time ever.

[HaZeust]

While correct, “The ballot of the bullet” can be deemed violent language, refrain from it. It’s better unspoken.

Plus, the shooter shot innocents. This wasn’t just a check and balance on an authority, this was an act of terror on civilians.

[incomingpain]

>How the hell did we get here?

Lets go backwards.

Messaging from the democrat side has been that trump is a threat to democracy, he's a fascist nazi, etc etc. You've seen the vilification. Days prior Biden literally said to put Trump in the bullseye and 'elimination' is necessary. Biden has withdrawn all these ads.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-polarization-of-politic...

Political polarization is primarily derived from the democrat side.

Echo chambers are mostly democrat sided. Reddit for example having banned r/thedonald for example. Each side now lives separately and aren't talking to each other except to dunk on each other's dumbest candidates. John Stewart's fault.

The fix here has to come from the democrat side, end the identity politics, and start preaching unity, democracy, and everyone is on the same team. It does seem that they have shifted their messaging, but to change your messaging strategy 3 months before the election is rather election ending.

[AnimalMuppet]

> Political polarization is primarily derived from the democrat side.

Say what? (Even the article you cite does not support your claim.)

> Echo chambers are mostly democrat sided.

Double what?

There is plenty of villification coming from Trump and the right. (Read his speeches.) There is plenty of violent rhetoric on the right. There is a big echo chamber on the right. If you don't see it, maybe you're in an echo chamber?

[dorkwood]

> Echo chambers are mostly democrat sided.

What are your thoughts on Qanon and Pizzagate?

Echo chambers exist on both sides. It's human nature to align yourself with a tribe and denounce everything that goes against it. Most people just don't have the self awareness to notice when it's happening to them.

[trealira]

> Political polarization is primarily derived from the democrat side.

You're really going to say that, while Trump sends out campaign emails like this?

> BIDEN'S DAY OF RECKONING IS COMING

> He tried to publicly torture and humiliate me ... BUT HE FAILED.

> He tried to raid my home and take me out with deadly force... BUT HE FAILED.

> He tried to bury me with so many witch hunts that I'd be forced to quit... BUT HE FAILED.

> STAND WITH TRUMP

> 34 RIGGED FELONY CONVICTIONS calls for an unprecedented response.

> And if our response to his tyrannical regime isn't MASSIVE, Biden will move onto his next target: YOU!

> THEY WANT TO SENTENCE ME TO DEATH!

> You know they’d do it if they could, but Crooked Joe’s team of lowlifes and radical left thugs will settle for a LIFE SENTENCE. ...

> Remember, it’s not me they’re after…

> THEY’RE AFTER YOU - I’M JUST STANDING IN THEIR WAY!

> But with your support,

> I’ll NEVER give up.

> I’LL NEVER SURRENDER! ...

> Your support is the only thing standing between the Biden regime and their ultimate goal of DESTROYING AMERICA ONCE AND FOR ALL.

This sort of rhetoric is standard. Seems like everyone has just forgotten about it.

[JamesAdir]

I know it sounds awful, but I blame the media. If you looked at some of the leading liberal newspapers in America, the minutes and hours after the shooting, you could see how they try to minimize the event, instead of reporting it truthfully.

[mistermann]

> and fight another battle of ideas in 4 years".

Someone should shoot "democracy" itself. It's 2024, why are we still driving a political system with training wheels that always takes us to places other than where 90%+ of people want to go?

Could it maybe be in part because we are immersed in pro-"democracy" propaganda from the day we are born, and are denied the educational curriculum (set by "democracy") that would give us the tools to think and engage in discourse at a level that would allow us to realize it, or at least consider the idea without everyone losing their cool?

Now, sticking with convention: has anyone any epistemically unsound memorized memes and catch phrases for me, to "prove" "democracy" is the ~best we can do, and that ideas like replacing it with a more sophisticated, non-deceptive implementation shan't be discussed among "the adults at the table"?

Inb4 "this isn't what HN is for".

Protip, fellow Humans: it is possible to think your way out of this simulation we are in, at least substantially (at which point you can rest, regroup, and plan for the next stage of ascent). And it isn't even very hard. It is little more than doing just what we Humans have proven ourselves excellent at, most of the time:

1. Identify a challenge.

2. Solve it.

Heck, this problem is actually mostly far more trivial[2] than things we do every day without thinking twice about it. It's mostly just not on our radar, and heavily psychologically protected territory[1]. But religion was this way once also, and science handed it an ass whooping, didn't it?

[1] Simple experiments can be run on social media or IRL to demonstrate this: specific prompts will produce highly predictable responses.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_language_model

[2] Irony noted lol