Have our political differences desensitized us to acts of extreme violence?

Former CNN host and current NewsNation anchor Chris Cuomo is not the guy you would expect to chastise his colleagues in the left-wing establishment media. On Sept. 16, to Cuomo’s credit, that is exactly what he did, blasting partisan journalists for their shoulder-shrugging attitude (to borrow Cuomo’s analogy) toward a second assassination attempt targeting 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump. More importantly, the news anchor cut through the politics, the rhetoric, and the finger-pointing to remind Trump’s media critics that this was an attempted murder of a human being, which they are downplaying for purely political reasons. Cuomo’s message reminds all of us that we are going down a very dark road when we become desensitized to lethal violence because of ideological differences.

The NewsNation show is called, quite simply, [Cuomo]. The host’s entire monologue seemed sincere and thought-provoking. Rather than the usual rampant America-bashing that we are so used to hearing from left-wing TV news show hosts, Cuomo began by talking about how much potential America has and bemoaned the fact that “We are so desperate to drag ourselves away from greatness, from progress, from each other.” This was his segue into discussing the media’s attitude toward the attempts on Trump’s life.

From Rhetoric to Assassination Attempts

Instead of diving into a political angle, Cuomo began with an entirely humanist approach – asking a question that would surely have made even the most hard-core progressives pause for a minute to ponder how they might honestly answer: “What if it was your father? Or what if it was Kamala Harris – or President Biden, God forbid.” He continued with a nod to an obvious double standard practiced by most of the left-wing media – although it’s something to which they would never admit. “You think that it would be almost a shoulder shrug and more talk about the Secret Service and allocation of funds than just how crazy it is that this is what’s happening in our country.”

Unfortunately, though, Cuomo – who is no fan of Trump, or of anyone on the political right, for that matter – couldn’t quite bring himself to go all the way in this moment of candor. As the monologue continued, he lamented the divisive rhetoric and the hate, but he mentioned only the “far right.” Not once did Cuomo verbalize what all rational Americans now know to be true: that the extreme language, demonization, and divisiveness from certain elected Democrats and influential left-wing voices – particularly in the media – have driven some of the less stable people on their side of the political divide to extreme violence.

To pretend that this is not really the case is to ignore reality. Is that to say there is no divisive, hateful, or violent rhetoric coming from some quarters of the political right? No, it is not, because that also exists.

Just one example of the link between partisan rhetoric from the left and an act of violence is Kamala Harris using the term “democracy is on the ballot.” Harris has used that term more than once, and other Democrats and left-wing pundits have also used it. Those exact words were used by someone else in a social media post – and that someone was Ryan Routh, the man who attempted to shoot Trump on Nov. 15.

Cuomo did, however, directly criticize Biden and Harris for their responses to Trump’s attempted assassination. He found it “troubling” to hear “fake concern by our sitting president, and almost nothing from the Democrat who wants to lead us.”

The news anchor isn’t the only person on the left who has been willing to put the seriousness of this issue ahead of partisan politics. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who is on the subcommittee charged with investigating the first Trump assassination attempt, has been vocal in his criticism of the Biden administration. “I am reaching the point of total outrage because the response from the Department of Homeland Security has been totally lacking. In fact, I think it’s tantamount to stonewalling, in many respects,” he told reporters, referring to the meager cooperation the congressional investigation is receiving.

Putting Humanity Before Ideology

Move away from Congress and politics, though, and back to the underlying message of Cuomo’s monologue. The postmortem – to use a possibly inappropriate phrase – on the reaction to the attempted assassination of Trump, both the first and second time, should focus more on our humanity, or maybe a lack of it, and less on our politics.

Now, to be clear, Cuomo has not switched sides politically. He has not been “red-pilled.” He is still a partisan who will frequently attack Trump – often unfairly. And he still is not above applying double standards to score political points. Nevertheless, some of his words should ring true for all of us.  “We are playing a dangerous game with ourselves. And we are doing it for petty stakes,” he said, insisting that “we cannot forget our human decency.” His final message was the important one: “You’ve got to care when somebody tries to kill somebody … either you care when anyone is hurt, or you’ll never really care about anyone being hurt.”

This isn’t a Kumbaya moment, and Cuomo acknowledges that. The nation will remain politically and ideologically opposed. People will continue to criticize the opinions and words of the “other side.” But when we reduce the attempted murder of a political opponent to a petty exchange of soundbites and forget the fact that one human being tried to murder another over differences of opinion, then we could be losing our humanity for good and reaching a point of no return.