War...What is it good for?

War, huh, yeah What is it good for?  Absolutely nothing…

While decades passed without such high-level successful assassinations, recent years have seen a dramatic number of deadly instances of political violence targeting officials at all levels of government.  During my lifetime, I have witnessed the assassinations of JFK, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy, Sr.  All tragedies, all acts committed by people who had some sort of disagreement with those shot dead.  President Reagan, survived an assassination attempt.  However, in recent years, our nation has experienced an uptick in assassination attempts as well as attacks on public figures.  Why?  There is a myriad of reasons.  I have listed several of these “attacks” for one’s perusal and allow one to possibly arrive at a conclusion.

A targeted attack struck the family of US District Judge Esther Salas in New Jersey on July 19, 2020.  She was the first Hispanic woman appointed to that position. Previously, Salas served as a U.S. Magistrate Judge, becoming the first Hispanic magistrate judge for the District of New Jersey. A self-proclaimed "anti-feminist" lawyer, Roy Den Hollander, disguised himself as a delivery driver and went to the judge's home, where he shot and killed her 20-year-old son, Daniel, and critically injured her husband, Mark.

One of the most significant events was the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. A group of Donald Trump's supporters stormed the building to prevent the certification of the 2020 election. Five people died on the day of the attack, and four police officers died by suicide in the following days.  Somehow that angry mob was thought of by some government officials as an orderly protest.

In 2022, Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg, a Democrat, was nearly killed in an assassination attempt during his mayoral campaign when a suspect fired 6 shots in the campaign office.

In April of this year, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s residence was set on fire. The suspect admitted to planning to beat Shapiro with a hammer.  Shapiro is a Democrat.

The recent deadliest attack on elected officials occurred in June 2025 in Minnesota. A 57-year-old man, Vance Boelter, went on a politically motivated shooting spree, killing Democratic State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, and wounding State Senator John Hoffman, a member of the Minnesota Democrat-Farmer-Labor Party.  Boelter was arrested and found to possess a "hit list" containing the names of 45 Democratic officials.

Assassination attempts on national leaders

Members of Congress have also been directly targeted. On June 14, 2017, a gunman motivated by left-wing extremism opened fire on Republican lawmakers practicing for a charity baseball game in Alexandria, Virginia. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise was critically wounded, and three others were injured before Capitol Police killed the attacker in a 10-minute gunfight.

In June 2022, an armed man was arrested outside the home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Republican, later admitting he intended to kill the justice.
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Other top officials have faced grave threats. In October 2022, the husband of then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Paul Pelosi, was bludgeoned with a hammer by an intruder in their San Francisco home. The attacker said he intended to hold the speaker hostage and break her kneecaps.

The highest levels of American politics have also been targeted recently. In 2024, President Trump, a Republican, faced two assassination attempts during his presidential campaign. On July 13, at a rally in Pennsylvania, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks fired an AR-15-style rifle from a rooftop 400 feet (122 meters) away. The shots grazed Trump's ear, killed a spectator, and wounded two others before Secret Service snipers killed Crooks.

The second attempt on President Trump occurred on Sept. 15, 2024, when 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh hid in bushes with an SKS rifle 300-500 yards (274-457 meters) from Trump at a Florida golf course. A Secret Service agent spotted the rifle and opened fire, causing Routh to flee without firing a shot.

Targeting infrastructure and officials

The violence has also extended to the infrastructure of politics. Political party offices for both Democrats and Republicans have been repeatedly attacked. In the fall of 2024, a man shot at a Democratic office in Tempe, Arizona, on three separate occasions.

In March 2025, the New Mexico GOP (Grand Old Party) headquarters in Albuquerque was targeted by suspected arson. Other incidents have included a 2016 firebombing of a North Carolina GOP office and repeated acts of vandalism against Democratic offices nationwide.

Finally, Charlie Kirk was gunned down at Utah Valley University during one of his engagements at university locations around the country.  Was Kirk controversial?  Yes.  But it that a reason to kill him?  It was a senseless murder for what reason?
  
My point is this…what we are seeing and experiencing with the attacks on political figures is not a left or right problem…it is all of our problem.  Social media has added to this problem because it allows people from hundreds of miles away to insult another with no real repercussions.  False information is displayed as “the truth”, and that information is not true at all.  Yet, subscribers to social media outlets believe the message to be accurate.  This creates a false narrative, one that is destructive to civil discourse.

Too many people have said, “This has to stop”, but little to no action has taken place.  Behavior of the leadership on both sides of the aisle hasn’t changed.  There is no respect shown for one another; there is no more “loyal opposition”.  The attitude is “you are with me or against me”, and that is just wrong.

Stating that these attacks are “evil” is a cop out for everyone.  This seemingly removes guilt from those of us who didn’t participate in the attack; it exonerates us…but does it?  Doing nothing to change the behavior of our role models…namely national politicians incite people to act out.  Bad things happen when bad words and intentions are spoken and displayed.  Threats made often end up in some sort of action…by those who are threatened.  And those actions are rarely good.

Our national political leaders have added to the problem with their divisive rhetoric or actions.  Was Speaker Pelosi guilty of this?  Absolutely.  When she tore up the SOTU address manuscript given to her by President Trump on national tv…she helped to incite her followers.  Pelosi was wrong in what she did.  She showed a lack of respect for the Office of the President of the United States regardless of her dislike for Trump.
 
Was, is, President Trump guilty of this?  Yes!  As early as the 2016 Republican Presidential Debates when he called then Senator Marco Rubio, “Little Marco” and other candidates as “losers”.   Calling President Biden “Sleepy Joe” in public is a complete disrespect for the President of the United States.  One cannot lead by continually inciting one’s opponents without expecting a bad result. 
 
In regards to Kirk’s assassination, President Trump made these comments:

“If you look at the problem, the problem is on the left. It’s not on the right, like some people like to share the right, the problem we have is on the left,” Trump told reporters. “And when you look at the agitator, you look at the scum that speaks so badly of our country, the American flag burnings all over the place, that’s the left. That’s not the right.”

The president on Saturday told NBC News that he wants to see the country heal, “but we’re dealing with a radical left group of lunatics.”

And Trump made these statements BEFORE any information regarding the shooter was known.

NOW, I purposely colored the Dems, blue, and the Republicans, red, so one could see the violence is NOT taking on the position of what the President has claimed…”…we’re dealing with a radical left group of lunatics.”  Logically, it doesn’t make much sense for a left leaning citizen to attack a Democrat, or a right leaning citizen to attack a Republican.  Does it?

Great leaders ask how can I help, not demand loyalty to the cause.  Great leaders may not agree with their opponents, but nonetheless, show respect to those with whom they may not be in agreement.  Great leaders make the people around themself, better at what they do.  Great leaders are not transactional, they are transformational.
  
The war between the two political parties needs to stop.  It will help lower the “temperature” of divisive rhetoric which should lower the attitude of “if you are not with us, you are against us.”  And just maybe prevent further attacks on political and public figures.
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War, what is it good for?  Absolutely nothing.  It ain't nothing but a heart-breaker, Friend only to The Undertaker….