And America is not alone in having a history of politics turned deadly. In 2022, former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated at a political event.
Presidents and seekers of political office are not the only ones at risk. Over the last three years, serious threats against US federal judges, prosecutors and court personnel have more than doubled, amid alarming reports of threats towards judges in Trump-related cases.
One judge, Juan Merchan, expanded a gag order on Trump after he posted the name and photo of Merchan’s daughter in a social media attack. Trump had been attacking prosecutors, court officials and even potential witnesses in his court cases.
Biden spoke after the Trump shooting on the need to tone down the political rhetoric. But American political vitriol has been in the making for years – and Trump is fluent in the lexicon. Will any toning down of that sort of corrosive and divisive speech last much longer than a couple of weeks?
The language of fear sets the stage for tragedy. Since Trump’s presidency, minority Americans have been living in unnecessary fear due to the political rhetoric that attacks illegal immigrants and instils fear in the American psych over these people destroying the country. This has had deadly consequences too – from random acts of violence to racially motivated killings.
The culmination of inflammatory and discriminatory political talk has got US minorities watching their backs all the time. For the Asian-American community, instances like Trump calling Covid-19 the “kung flu” only added to their anxiety.
When a New York tabloid falsely reported on Trump’s shooter being “Chinese”, it put the Asian-American community in harm’s way. This threat to ordinary Americans simply for being or looking Asian has no place in US politics or democracy either.
There is much to say about the power of words and how years of condoning their destructive influence created an environment where people took their fear, anger and frustration onto the streets, where trust has broken down across political divides and in public institutions.
Words can kill. That is what we need to remember when we use them to make a point, support our stance and vilify others. While political violence cannot be condoned, we need to recognise it’s not only the drawing of the gun that we condemn.
In Hong Kong, we have had our dark days of divisive politics, where inflammatory language flew inside legislative chambers and spilled out onto our streets, printed in our newspapers. Rather than focus on the unimaginable, we must recognise what nearly came to pass.
Moderating our words isn’t necessarily self-censorship. It is only in truly recognising the power of words and accepting the duty that comes with the freedom to use them that we can make a difference. It starts with us – let’s reject inflammatory talk and to choose our words wisely and responsibly.
Alice Wu is a political consultant and a former associate director of the Asia Pacific Media Network at UCLA
Name: Chelsea King Origin: Nottingham, United KingdomPlaces lived or worked: Nottingham and London, UK and Bangkok, Thailand Pronouns: She/her CV:Editorial and copywriting director, Midas PR, Bangkok,...