Hello and happy Tuesday. We are 111 days away from the election, what can we say at this point?

Like many of us, I am glad that Donald Trump was not seriously injured in Saturday's assassination attempt and I am deeply saddened by the innocent bystanders who were killed and those who were injured. I also feel sorry for all of us because this is horrible and no one should ever have to go through this.

So how did we get here, and what's next?

The short answer to the first question is that we have been on this path for a long time, and for those who study political extremism, this political violence was predictable. Indeed, if you recall the hammer attack on Paul Pelosi, it is an escalation, but it is also just a continuation of this journey to the edge of the flat earth of democracy.

What's going to happen next is hard to predict, but there are a few things that are safer bets. Let's get started.

Not everyone is against violence

Thankfully, there is an undeniable consensus that political violence is unacceptable, but it is not a universal sentiment.

Garren Wintemute is an emergency physician and director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis, whose organization studies gun violence and political violence.

I asked him if he was shocked by the Trump shooting.

“To be honest, every day for the last few weeks I was hoping something would happen and feeling lucky at the end of each day that it didn't happen,” he told me.

That's because his research found that nearly a third of people surveyed believe violence is “usually or always” justified to advance at least one political goal.

For more than a decade, Wintemute said, these political causes have been primarily right-wing (though there have been times in history when violence has been more likely to come from left-leaning elements, such as the Weather Underground in the 1960s).

In 2022, Wintemute's study found what most of us would have expected: that those who believe violence is an acceptable use are primarily MAGA Republicans, Christian nationalists, QAnon-style conspiracy theorists, and historically violent white supremacists.

In 2023, Wintemute expanded the categories he asked about and found that people whose hatred was more generalized and less organized – racists, sexists, xenophobes and the usual anti-LGBTQ+ crowds – were more likely to support violence.

“When we looked in 2023, they were there,” Wintemute said of the new finds.

Not only are there a certain number of people who harbor hate in their hearts, but there are also a certain number of people who believe that violence is a legitimate way to foster that hate.

But Wintemute doesn't believe those forces will necessarily win, and believes there is a way forward in which “extremists are not going to drag us off a cliff.”

Is the call for unity real?

So even if a third of people approve of violence, the good news is that there is still a majority who do not approve.

There have been calls for Trump and Biden to tone down their rhetoric, but the same old rhetoric is being repeated again. On Monday, after listing his frustrations about his legal troubles, Trump posted on his Truth Social site:

The Democratic Department of Justice coordinated all of these political attacks, an election interference plot against Joe Biden's political opponent in Maine. Let's unite to end all weaponization of our justice system and Make America Great Again!

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said:

I have so many questions about how this 20 year old nearly assassinated President Trump. This reeks of something much more sinister and bigger. There's just so much that doesn't make sense. I don't care what anyone says about me saying this because we all know that's what we all think. Call me a conspiracy theorist if you want. I don't care. Crazy leftists have been fantasizing loudly about killing Trump for years.

So while there may be a surface sense of civility, it quickly fades. To me, the calls for unity seem more practical than sincere. We live in an age where it seems vulgar for leaders to do anything less. But leaders are leaders.

This calls for discernment and caution on the part of the rest of us.

“The challenge for us as individuals is to recognize that we are not bystanders to this train wreck that is happening here,” Wintemute warned. “We are on board the train, and each and every one of us must be willing to act to prevent political violence.”

If unity is to be found, it will revolve around a simple component of democracy: using the vote, not the gun.

Wintemute believes it is incumbent on all of us to speak out loud and clear in our rejection of violence, so because some of you may not like what I'm about to say next, I'll say it again:

Let me go on record: there will never be a situation in which violence is an acceptable political choice.

But silence is not solidarity

America is at a crossroads. This election will determine the direction of American life for generations to come.

There has been no change to the Republican platform, which still calls for the deportation of 10 million people, a claim backed by Trump's long-held claim that immigrants are “animals.”

Republicans still plan to shut down the Department of Education and let states decide what they will or will not teach. Louisiana The Ten Commandments became necessary This textbook, distributed to every classroom, demonstrates the creeping spread of Christian nationalism, which has little tolerance for religious diversity, or any diversity at all.

Republicans remain anti-abortion, and while their platform has become more toned down, the impact of these beliefs can be seen in the widespread health care deserts for women across the country today. Abortion aside, when pregnancies go wrong, women find themselves in dire, sometimes life-threatening situations.

Republicans still demand mass firings of government workers and promise to replace them with political loyalists. Do we want QAnon believers writing the rules for Medicare?

The existential threat to democracy remains, and we cannot be afraid to address it.

As abhorrent as this shooting was, it may not be the last act of political violence we see this year.

And violence must not be a reason to intimidate and silence those who fight to protect civil rights, safety nets, and freedom of choice.

Must Read: FBI seeks motive of Trump rally shooter, also probing Secret Service
California Perspective: Harris leads Biden in two state polls, but has her own weaknesses
LA Times SpecialThe 20-year-old who nearly killed Trump was a good student, had a job and belonged to a gun club

P.S. I'll be in Milwaukee this week for the Republican National Convention, so wish me luck and let me know what you'd like me to cover. The big news so far is the selection of JD Vance as the vice presidential candidate, but there's more to come.

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