This is a repost of an essay that first appeared in The Ink this summer, after the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
Within minutes of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, the Unity Statements began to popcorn out.
Every Unity Statement is different, but there are certain stylistic requirements that a Democratic political figure knows to follow.
First, the statement maker’s spouse’s name should be included prominently somewhere: “Becky and I were sad to hear…” “Corey and I were deeply shaken by the news…” “Charlie and I join together…” The inclusion of the spouse is important here because it signals that this is a special kind of statement. More Christmas card vibes than political statement vibes. The normal rules are suspended. There will be no jabs here, no stridency, maybe not even any truth.
Second, the Unity Statement must deplore effects without naming or shaming their causes. Now is not the time for blaming someone for their role in contributing to what has finally now come around to imperil them, too. The Unity Statement thereby defies physics with its conception of uncaused effects; it defies botany in its vision of reaping with no connection whatever to sowing.
Third, a Democratic Unity Statement must mention temperature. Specifically, it should suggest that the temperature has risen too high. Though it may be Republicans who are overwhelmingly responsible for raising the temperature, planetarily and politically, in a respectable Unity Statement, this cannot be said. Instead, it should be argued that the temperature be lowered. Who knows how it got raised, and who really cares? And the Democratic statement maker must immediately volunteer to participate in the lowering of what they may have had no part in raising.
Fourth, the Unity Statement must, duh!, call for unity. Oh, and it must be unilateral unity. “Unity,” unmodified, is defined by Merriam-Webster as “the quality or state of not being multiple,” even “a condition of harmony.” The issuer of the Unity Statement knows that this ain’t gonna happen nationally. What the well-meaning Democratic leader means when they call for unity is that they want you, their followers, the people who would actually listen to a Democrat’s words, to engage in some unity making all by yourself. Reach out to an uncle you cut out of your life just because he made the honest mistake of degrading your very being at Thanksgiving; bake brownies for a neighbor whose only sin is flying a Trump flag — plus the Aryan Nations tattoos. Go do some unity — and don’t wait for anyone else to join you. Dance like no one’s watching, they say. Do unity like the other side isn’t ever going to do it also.
Fifth, for extra credit on your Unity Statement, you can even go so far as to argue that unity now demands refraining from telling the truth about threats to democracy. We can’t all get along if we’re busy pointing over there and yelling, “That man is an existential threat to democracy!” It’s mean. So, as Democratic Congressman Jared Golden wrote in the aftermath of the attack on Trump, “We can start by dropping hyperbolic threats about the stakes of this election. It should not be misleadingly portrayed as a struggle between democracy or authoritarianism, or a battle against fascists or socialists bent on destroying America.”
Here, though, are some of the problems with the Unity Statement as we have been experiencing it.
It places the burden of healing the country on those not responsible for wounding it.
It asks well-meaning, earnest people to stop doing what they never were doing in the first place, while all but conceding that the people who are still doing it will not stop.
It deplores crimes against the common good without being interested in perpetrators.
It exonerates the victim who is the object of the statement from any complicity they might have had in creating the conditions that led to the statement having to be made.
It elevates the promptings of politeness over the promptings of honesty.
It substitutes a vague idea of “coming together” for the urgent and vital work of stopping an ongoing campaign of sowing hatred, disinformation, distrust, and enmity.
When you’re raising chickens, and they’re routinely being killed by hawks, you don’t need unity. You need a scarecrow, maybe, and some mesh netting, and perhaps to hang up some flashy objects.
What the Unity Statement is attempting to reach for is worthy and righteous. But we must find a way to deplore political violence and call for a nobler, more dignified politics that doesn’t erase reality, deny causation, whitewash recent history, and give a free pass to those who have brought the American republic to this brink.
Yes, it would be great for us all to be nicer to each other, for this to feel like a more trusting and generous and loving country. But let not the formula of the Unity Statement distract us from the truth: Donald Trump is the head of a movement that has spent nine years pumping hatred and distrust and contempt and post-factualness and vigilantism and, underlying it all, a notion of America as a war of all against all.
So, please, find a way to send your prayers for his recovery while also being vigilant of how he has before, and will again, fan and exploit the perception of his victimhood to advance his fascist project. By all means, profess that political violence has no place in American life, while also being very clear that Trump’s stoking of it over these last years has changed the country beyond measure. Yes, remind people that we ought to resolve our differences at the ballot box, not through violence, but do so without forgetting that Trump set the example by helping to incite the January 6, 2021, insurrection. Bemoan that Trump fell victim to a rifle attack, but also hold space for the idea that his fervent opposition to sensible gun reform has made it so much harder to protect him from this kind of occurrence. Of course, insist on a thorough investigation and pledge to follow the facts where they lead, but do not skip over the fact that Trump’s assault on factual reality itself has made the country so much less capable of properly processing an event like this.
It is possible to believe that shooting leaders we don’t like is absolutely, incontrovertibly out of bounds and — and — that this event has a history and a context. It didn’t just fall out of a coconut tree. It is possible to wish a man a speedy recovery and to insist on the urgency of doing every peaceful thing humanly possible to prevent him from driving the country even further down this road to where what happened to him — even though it never should have — becomes unexceptional.
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