Kathy and I joined several hundred of our fellow Huntington Library supporters this evening for a beautiful evening of sitting on the lawn with our picnics while feverishly checking our newsfeeds. Yet some of us couldn’t help pausing and singing along when the Irie Earth steel drum band swung into Bob Marley’s “One Love/People Get Ready”:
Let them all pass all their dirty remarks (One love!)
There is one question I’d really love to ask (One heart!)
Is there a place for the hopeless sinner
Who has hurt all mankind just to save his own beliefs?
I don’t mean to be critical of the people at the Huntington. It was not a Trump crowd. But no matter your politics, this was a bad day for the United States. It seemed odd that within a few hours of the Butler shooting, no one stepped to the mic to say a word about the victims.
Trump has not laid up stores of sympathy. He and his movement have encouraged, acquiesced in, or downplayed political violence, as on Jan. 6. On Facebook, sangfroid bled into bloodthirsty when a few people reckoned the prayers I posted for Mr. Trump as dirty remarks and in a couple of cases seemed open to the idea that he had gotten what he deserved.
But tit for tat thinking puts everyone on the same moral plane and leaves the high ground unoccupied, inviting a nightmare spiral of reciprocity. Even if you have gotten yourself into such high dudgeon that you’re tempted to justify violence, you can’t, because it’s illegal and wicked, and also because the other side will hit back harder. Before long, our country will be unrecognizable. Without even knowing the shooter’s motives, Trump’s allies are already blaming the president. God help us if shots ring out at his next rally.
Maybe both candidates glimpsed Jesus today. Two weeks ago Trump called the president a broken down pile of crap, and last week, Biden said Trump was a bull’s eye. Today, they spoke on the phone, and they said the right thing in their public statements. While it wasn’t as elevated as the rhetoric that accompanied last week’s peaceful transition of power in Great Britain, it was a start. Now let’s graduate to a lively, peaceful campaign (whoever runs) and a clear, uncontested outcome. It’s a lot to hope for. But it’s all we’ve got.
Let’s get together to fight this Holy Armageddon (One love!)
So when the man comes there will be no, no doom (One song!)