There is much we still don’t know in the wake of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. The shooter’s motives and mental state remain a mystery. Exactly how the Secret Service and local authorities failed to secure the would-be assassin’s location and prevent his deadly fire is still undetermined. An authoritative ballistics assessment of the shots fired or even an official medical report describing former President Trump’s wounds and treatment has to be released.

But these things we know for certain. Political violence must never be acceptable in the United States. It doesn’t merely constitute an attack on individual politicians, parties and their partisans, but represents an assault on American democracy itself. Bullets must not replace ballots. Deadly force can never be substituted for civil debate. Just as important, political rhetoric that excuses or even advocates for violence, language that demands coercion over persuasion, and eliminationist propaganda that brands opponents as sub-humans and deviants deserving of eradication must be received by all Americans with disgust and scorn.

Rhetoric, that is, like this: “Some folks need killing.”

Those are the words of current North Carolina Lt. Governor and 2024 GOP gubernatorial candidate, Mark Robinson. As Greg Sargent explained, Robinson was a little vague of just who was on his list of enemies but did mention “’people who have evil intent’ to ‘wicked people’ to those doing things like ‘torturing and murdering and raping’ to socialists and Communists.” But the man who defended such killings as “a matter of necessity” wasn’t disavowed by either the state or national Republican parties. (That comes as no surprise, since the NC GOP’s choice for schools superintendent previously called for the executions of Joe Biden and Barack Obama). Far from being forced to withdraw from the race, Robinson is currently running even with Democrat opponent Josh Stein.

“Trump superfan” Cesar Sayoc certainly agreed with Robinson’s sentiment. In 2019, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for mailing pipe bombs to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and 14 other high-profile Democrats. In their request for leniency, Sayoc’s lawyers explained that “Mr. Sayoc found light in Donald J. Trump.” As a message on Sayoc’s van read, “light” like this:

“Zero tolerance. Kill your enemy and those who rob you then take them to Everglade for gators.”

Short of calling for the murders of their political foes, many Republicans nevertheless are enthusiastic about other forms of assault. Donald Trump, after all, not only urged his supporters to “knock the crap out” of protesters, but offered to pay their legal expenses as well. Trump joked about the police banging suspects heads against the roof of a squad car. (Several GOP-led states liked this idea so much they have since passed laws granting immunity to drivers whose vehicles strike and injure protesters in public streets.) Heading into the 2018 midterms, President Trump praised Montana Republican Rep. Greg Gianforte for throwing a reporter to the ground:

"Any guy that can do a body slam, he is my type!"

Trump’s types apparently includes David DePape, recently sentenced to 30 years in prison for the 2022 attempted kidnapping of and assault on Nancy Pelosi’s husband. Like many other of the GOP’s best and brightest, Trump suggested that the hammer attack which left the 82-year-old Paul Pelosi with a fractured skull was instead some sort of tryst.

“Wow, it’s — weird things going on in that household in the last couple of weeks. Probably, you and I are better off not talking about it. The glass it seems was broken from the inside to the out so it wasn’t a break in, it was a break out. I don’t know, you hear the same things I do.”

The former President’s son, Donald Trump, Jr. got in the act, too. As CNN reported on October 31, 2022:

Late Sunday night, Trump Jr. shared an image on social media of a hammer and a pair of underwear with the words “Got my Paul Pelosi Halloween costume ready.” Trump Jr. wrote: “The Internet remains undefeated.”

(For her part, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in contrast responded to news of Saturday’s attempted assassination by writing, “I thank God that former President Trump is safe.”

Still, there is no shortage of Republicans who have told their supporters that when the going gets tough, the tough should grab their guns. In 2009, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) exhorted her constituents to oppose “cap and trade” legislation. “I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax,” the one-time 2012 GOP White House frontrunner warned, “because we need to fight back.” And as his country was being ravaged by the COVID pandemic and his bungled response to it, President Trump issued a not-so-thinly veiled call-to-arms to Americans and refuse to accept the public health protections in place in their states:

"LIBERATE MICHIGAN!; LIBERATE MINNESOTA!; LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!"

And it is the Second Amendment which is, Republican luminaries are quick to assure us, the ultimate remedy for that disappointing of political outcomes—losing an election. Like Bachmann, in 2010 Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle seemed to confuse losing with tyranny during her race against Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid:

Thomas Jefferson said it’s good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years. I hope that’s not where we’re going, but you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies. [Emphasis mine.]

Donald Trump must have approved of that formula, using as he did during his 2016 presidential campaign against Hillary Clinton. During an August 2016 rally in North Carolina, Trump issued this warning to his voters—and Clinton:

Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment. If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is. I don't know. [Emphasis mine.]

To be sure, Trump acolyte and current Arizona GOP Senate candidate Kari Lake counts herself among those Second Amendment people. Lake, who like Trump attributed her loss in the 2022 gubernatorial campaign to mythical election fraud, made clear to supporters in April she would literally give the 2024 Senate  race her best shot.

The next six months is going to be intense. We’re going to strap on our seatbelt. We’re going to put on our helmet, or your Kari Lake ball cap. We are going to put on the armor of God. And maybe strap on a Glock on the side of us just in case. [Emphasis mine.]

Just in case Lake loses, that is.

That no-so-thinly veiled threat—that Republican voters will turn to violence if their candidate loses at the ballot box—was echoed by Trump himself just days after Lake strapped on her Glock. Pressed by Time magazine if there would be violence if he lost this fall’s presidential election, Trump refused to rule it out.

TIME: You said, “I think we're going to win and there won't be violence.” What if you don't win, sir?

TRUMP: Well, I do think we're gonna win. We're way ahead. I don't think they'll be able to do the things that they did the last time, which were horrible…I think we're going to win. And if we don't win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election. [Emphasis mine.]

For other luminaries of the right, being on the losing side of a court decision is reason enough to turn to threats of intimidation and violence. In March 2005, the United States Supreme Court—like every court before them--ruled against Republicans trying to block Terri Schiavo’s husband Michael from honoring her wish to be taken off of life support. In response, then House Majority Leader Tom Delay darkly warned, “The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today.”

Texas GOP Senator John Cornyn, himself a former judge on the Texas Supreme Court and now the second-ranking Republican in the U.S. Senate, suggested that judicial payback was somehow justified. Just days after the murders of a judge in Atlanta and another's family members in Chicago, Cornyn offered his endorsement of judicial intimidation:

"I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection, but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. … And I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters, on some occasions, where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in, engage in violence."

Among those alarmed by Cornyn’s rhetoric was Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. O’Connor blamed Cornyn and his fellow travelers for "creating a culture" in which violence toward judges is merely another political tactic:

"It gets worse. It doesn't help when a high-profile senator suggests a 'cause-and-effect connection' [between controversial rulings and subsequent acts of violence.]"

The right-wing commentariat was unmoved. In January 2006, Ann Coulter joked, “We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens' creme brûlée.” Erick Erickson, who following the Trump assassination attempt blamed the likes of MSNBC, gleefully marked the resignation of Supreme Justice David Souter with the slander:

“The nation loses the only goat f**king child molester to ever serve on the Supreme Court in David Souter's retirement.”

So when candidate and then President Donald Trump began threatening judges, among his supporters as a feature, not a bug. Long before Trump began attack judges in prosecutors presiding over his cases in New York, Washington, Georgia and Florida, he denounced Trump University magistrate Gonzalo Curiel as “a Mexican” and “a Trump hater.” Shortly after taking office, President Trump blasted a judge who handed him a defeat over his Muslim ban.

“Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!"

In response, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) could only offer this feeble response: “It is best not to single out judges.”

Of course, McConnell also said of the January 6, 2021 coup attempt at the Capitol that Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for what transpired while privately explaining that “If this isn’t impeachable, I don’t know what is.” McConnell nevertheless voted to acquit Trump because “I didn’t get to be leader by voting with five people in the conference.”

Mitch McConnell may be an unprincipled coward, but he’s also a clear-eyed realist when it comes to the pathology of his own party. After all, 140 GOP House members and 7 Republican Senators voted to block the certification of Joe Biden’s victory on January 6, 2021. The Party of Lincoln voted overwhelmingly to acquit President Trump of impeachment charges in the Senate. And over time, the Big Lie that the 2020 election was “stolen” has become an article of faith for Republican voters. Three year after the failed coup, only 31% of Trump backers believe Joe Biden’s victory was legitimate. And while it is difficult to accurately measure voters’ support for political violence, by last fall 33 percent of Republicans support violence as a means to “save the country,” versus only 13% for Democrats. It’s no wonder GOP officials like Ohio Rep. George Lang would seem comfortable issuing an incendiary warning like this at Trump-Vance rally:

“I’m afraid if we lose this one, it’s going to take a civil war to save the country.” [Emphasis mine.]

That’s why Trump, his GOP allies and even most of his opponents for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination regurgitate the obscenity that the convicted January 6 felons are instead “patriots”, “freedom fighters”, “political prisoners” or “hostages” who should be pardoned. As Trump promised in March:

My first acts as your next President will be to Close the Border, DRILL, BABY, DRILL, and Free the January 6 Hostages being wrongfully imprisoned! [Emphasis mine.]

This Republican redefinition of right-wing violence and terrorism as mere political expression has been a project under development for 20 years. In 2014, GOP Nevada Senator Dean Heller defended the heavily armed militia members threatening federal marshals seeking to collect overdue grazing fees from deadbeat Cliven Bundy. “What Sen. Reid may call domestic terrorists,” Heller declared, “I call patriots.” When Ed Brown and his wife engaged in a five-month standoff with the FBI after refusing to surrender on tax charges, GOP Rep. and presidential hopeful Ron Paul called them “heroes” and compared Brown to Gandhi. Perhaps most notable, in 2008 John McCain VP pick Sarah Palin refused to denounce abortion clinic bombers as terrorists. When NBC’s Brian Williams asked, "Is an abortion clinic bomber a terrorist," Palin said no:

"There's no question that Bill Ayers via his own admittance was one who sought to destroy our U.S. Capitol and our Pentagon. That is a domestic terrorist. There's no question there. Now, others who would want to engage in harming innocent Americans or facilities that uh, it would be unacceptable. I don't know if you're going to use the word terrorist there."

(Even someone as extreme as Bush Attorney General John Ashcroft disagreed with her, branding Atlanta and Birmingham abortion clinic bomber Eric Rudolph a “terrorist.")

And so it goes. In 2011, then GOP presidential frontrunner Rick Perry accused Fed chairman Ben Bernanke of “treason” and promised “we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas.” Ten years later, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) shared an animated video depicting him killing Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and swinging swords at President Biden. For years, Republican presidential candidates, governors, members of Congress and media stars have compared Obamacare, the national debt, abortion, taxes, regulations on for-profit colleges and virtually everything else they hate to the slavery, the Holocaust, or both. And all the while, Donald Trump has branded the press as “the true Enemy of the people” while casually trafficking in the eliminationist language of “poisoning the blood of our country” for immigrants and “vermin” for his political opponents.

Following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, just as in the aftermath of the near-fatal shooting of Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), Democratic leaders quickly and unanimously denounced the attack and the threat of political violence. “We are praying for him, his family, and all those who have been injured and impacted by this senseless shooting,” Vice President Kamala Harris declared, “We must all condemn this abhorrent act and do our part to ensure that it does not lead to more violence.” During his July 14 speech to the nation, President Biden didn’t merely proclaim he was “sincerely grateful” that the former president is “doing well and recovering.” Biden went on to caution the American people that we now face “a time for testing.”

“All of us now face a time of testing as the election approaches. There is no place in America for this kind of violence — for any violence. Ever. Period. No exception. We can’t allow this violence to be normalized.”

That’s exactly right. All Americans—politicians, the press and the public of every partisan persuasion—must denounce and reject the deadly dangerous rhetoric of political violence. Those who instead propagate and condone the language of terror, violence and death should have no place in America politics.