Making Sense - Sam Harris - #375 — On the Attempted Assassination of President Trump

Sam Harris reflects on the near assassination of former President Trump, and offers a sober assessment of the dangers of political violence in the wake of Saturday s attempted assassination of Donald Trump. Sam's thoughts on what we should do now that we know the identity of the shooter, and what we can learn about the man who attempted to kill him, and the dangers he poses to our democracy, and why it's time to confront the truth about the actual risk to democracy posed by political violence by Donald Trump and his policies, and how we must confront the third truth about him, which is that he poses a much greater risk than most presidents in modern history, and that he is a dangerous danger to democracy than any other president in modern times. The problem for Democrats is that any observation of this second truth, a truth that seems likely to darken and expand in the aftermath of yesterday s events, will now be seen as an incitement to further political violence, and a symptom of a political disease we must cure, not just about the risks Trump poses to democracy, but about the dangers that he presents to our political order, and about our democracy itself, as well as what we learn about him and what it means about him that could be done to restore civility and basic decency to our politics. Make sense of it, and asks the question about what it might mean for our democracy in the post 9/11 world. What does it mean for us to do about it? The Making Sense Podcast makes sense of the possibility of a return to civility, decency, and respect for the rule of the rule and rule of law in our democracy? What is it about Trump and the rule, and our democracy and what does it really mean about it, really mean, and is it really about him? And what does he really mean? -- -- and why does he still pose a threat to our democratic order? -- and what is it possible to be a good president? -- is it a good person? -- makes sense, and doesn t it really? -- or is it not? -- of the threat to us? -- -- of it? -- does it matter? -- why it matters? -- what it matters, and what it really means? -- how does it serve us better than it does? -- can it really matter, or doesn't it matter, What it matters to us, and does it make us have a chance to be?

00:00:00.000 welcome to the making sense podcast this is Sam Harris okay well not much happening in the world

00:00:30.000 I'm recording late in the day on Monday so about 48 hours after the attempted assassination of

00:00:38.920 former President Trump I'm sure I'll have more to say about this when I speak to Ann Applebaum

00:00:45.360 on the podcast later in the week over at Substack I've written a flurry of short posts in the last

00:00:54.560 two weeks or so all on politics all of them arguing that the Biden campaign is over whether

00:01:02.980 or not Biden and his team realize it and I think that's even more true today I don't see how Biden

00:01:11.280 runs against Trump in the aftermath of this near assassination which as horrible as it is and was

00:01:20.040 and I'll talk about that the net result for Trump is about as good as you could imagine had this been

00:01:27.880 stage managed by Satan it could not have been better for Trump so let's just say that I think

00:01:34.240 the Biden campaign is even more doomed than it was last week but perhaps any democratic campaign

00:01:42.800 is doomed at this point that remains to be seen obviously Biden hasn't dropped out yet so all of

00:01:50.480 this is academic for the moment but after Saturday I think you have to expect we will have a second

00:01:58.420 term of President Trump I don't know what prediction markets are saying at this point but it has been an

00:02:03.880 extraordinary 48 hours I think I'll just read the short post I wrote yesterday about the attempt on

00:02:11.980 Trump's life first one thing I didn't say in the post is had the shooter succeeded whatever you think

00:02:20.700 about Trump and the risks he poses to our democracy that outcome would have been catastrophic nothing good

00:02:30.860 would have come from a successful act of political violence which is a very long and callous way of saying

00:02:38.040 that I am very happy the shooter missed obviously one person did die a man protecting his family

00:02:45.880 that is absolutely tragic and I believe two people are in critical condition so the whole thing is

00:02:53.340 awful but for anybody out there who imagines it would have been better all things considered if

00:03:00.720 Trump had been killed again even from a completely callous point of view that cares nothing for the man

00:03:07.740 or his family or his friends or anyone else if you're just hoping for a certain political outcome 0.55

00:03:15.560 I think you're completely delusional if you think blowing his head off on television would have resulted

00:03:22.640 in something good in America our entire society quite literally dodged a bullet along with the man himself

00:03:31.120 which as everyone has observed and everyone must concede the fact that he was almost entirely unharmed

00:03:40.340 and with the difference of an inch would have been certainly killed that part was astounding but also

00:03:47.520 his behavior in the immediate aftermath and the resulting photos and video although the photos have been most

00:03:55.240 impactful you just have to join the chorus of amazement especially given his persona and his political

00:04:03.540 needs his upraised fist his attitude the man had the presence of mind to stage manage his own

00:04:12.660 near assassination perfectly and i don't mean to make a cynical point here that was genuinely impressive

00:04:19.700 anyway i don't know how any democrat successfully runs against that imagery especially because of points

00:04:28.900 i raise in this piece on substack the title is stepping back from the precipice in the aftermath of

00:04:37.780 yesterday's events we must hold three truths in mind simultaneously the first is that political

00:04:45.060 violence of any kind is horrific and obscene despite the widespread moral confusion evident on social

00:04:51.940 media the attempted assassination of former president trump was simply a tragedy for our country and in

00:04:59.220 response to this truth we must do whatever we can to restore civility and basic decency to our politics

00:05:06.020 but there's a second truth now all but unutterable and it is this no one has done more to destroy

00:05:14.260 civility and basic decency in our politics than donald trump no one in fact has done more to increase the

00:05:21.700 threat of political violence unlike any president in modern history trump brings out the worst in both his

00:05:28.340 enemies and his friends his influence on american life seems almost supernaturally pernicious the problem

00:05:36.340 for democrats is that any observation of this second truth a truth that seems likely to darken and expand

00:05:43.060 in the aftermath of yesterday's attack will now be condemned as rancorous and immoral or worse as an

00:05:49.620 incitement to further political violence every necessary criticism of trump's authoritarianism fondness for

00:05:56.420 dictators fraudulence personal corruption hostility to the rule of law and fathomless dishonesty will

00:06:04.660 be mistaken for or cynically construed as a symptom of the very political disease we must cure telling

00:06:12.020 the truth about the actual risks that trump and trumpism still pose to our democracy just became much more

00:06:18.580 difficult as we await further details about the gunman it is important that we embrace a third

00:06:24.980 truth whether or not it becomes easy to detect a coherent motive or set of influences we must recognize

00:06:31.620 that he represented no one and nothing beyond his own abomination and depending on what we learn about

00:06:37.140 him this truth could prove dangerously elusive it may even seem to contradict the second truth adduced above

00:06:43.700 didn't i just suggest that trump himself has behaved so irresponsibly as to increase the risk of

00:06:48.980 political violence yes and he has done so repeatedly for instance in 2016 candidate trump mused that a

00:06:57.620 staunch defender of the second amendment might want to kill hillary clinton to prevent her from appointing 1.00

00:07:02.900 judges that could threaten our gun rights this single utterance represents a shocking and unprecedented

00:07:09.220 violation of a political norm merely one among hundreds that trump carelessly shattered both

00:07:15.140 as a candidate and as president however had there been a subsequent attempt on clinton's life it would

00:07:20.740 have been wrong to have held trump directly responsible for the violence because there was a vast gulf

00:07:26.340 between his words however reckless and a sincere incitement to murder and there is a further gulf between

00:07:33.860 incitement and the act of climbing a roof with a rifle and attempting to kill another human being

00:07:40.260 we cannot allow the lunatic behavior of a disturbed young man to further derange our politics let me state

00:07:48.180 the second truth more starkly in case the third still isn't clear there are tens of millions of americans

00:07:55.460 who believe that the world would be a better place without donald trump in it and if he were to die in

00:08:01.380 his sleep sometime before election day they would not mourn him i suspect that literally millions of

00:08:07.780 americans would celebrate the man's natural death this is not merely a sign of how politically unhinged

00:08:14.660 we have become as a nation it is a sign of how unhinged trump has made us fully half of our neighbors are

00:08:22.500 desperate to have this man out of their lives but very few of them would defend what happened yesterday

00:08:30.340 for obvious reasons the first is surely that they don't support murder but most of them also

00:08:36.660 understand the first truth above political violence in any direction for any stated purpose harms us all

00:08:45.060 if an ordinary republican like ronald reagan george bush john mccain or mit romney had been shot under

00:08:52.740 identical circumstances what would happen next this is a surprisingly easy question to answer we can be

00:09:00.660 confident that any of these men would soon step before the cameras very likely in the company of

00:09:06.740 his democratic opponent and call for unity in america having been brought to the precipice a normal

00:09:14.180 republican would seek to lead our nation back to safety he would emphasize not his personal magnificence

00:09:21.220 the heroic sacrifices he has made for his supporters or the vengeance he will soon unleash upon his

00:09:27.780 enemies but the necessity for calm he would assert his confidence in the strength of our democracy

00:09:34.740 and the integrity of our electoral process above all he would speak about the sacred significance of a

00:09:40.500 peaceful transfer of power is this what anyone expects from trump in the coming days his first words to the

00:09:47.700 crowd fist raised appear to have been fight fight fight what will his next words be will he try to unite our

00:09:56.820 country or will he talk about the democrats as quote scum the press as quote enemies of the people and claim

00:10:05.300 that only he can save our country from the evil that assails it as never before from within and without

00:10:11.300 let's wait and see and where is the democratic candidate who can effectively campaign against trump

00:10:19.300 now so that's what i wrote i do think we have a problem in that the appropriate response to the

00:10:27.940 attempted assassination of a former president which is of course horror and sympathy and a concerted effort

00:10:36.180 to get to the bottom of what happened all of this will serve as so much has in trump's life to normalize

00:10:44.740 him as a political figure but he is not a normal political figure the fact that we could rationally worry

00:10:53.220 that our society might be pitched into something like a civil war had that bullet done more than grazed

00:10:59.220 his ear we are here in large measure because of what trump has done to our society he has poisoned

00:11:07.780 our political landscape with lies lies about a stolen election it's not just trump it's also social media

00:11:16.500 and now it's figures like elon who have become fairly trumpian it's this taste for conspiracy theory

00:11:23.860 but trump has been stoking this and riding atop all of it for nearly a decade this moment is as

00:11:31.300 perilous as it is in large measure because of trump and the fact that talking about that now will be

00:11:39.860 condemned everywhere right of center as an incitement to further political violence as yet another instance

00:11:47.300 of dangerous hyperbole that almost got trump killed all of this is upside down right no one has turned

00:11:55.540 up the temperature more than trump when nancy pelosi's husband got his head bashed in by a hammer wielding

00:12:02.980 maniac and trump supporter trump joked about it that's the environment that has been created here the

00:12:10.580 democrats have contributed very little to those kinds of norm violations i've said a lot about what's

00:12:17.860 wrong with the left but you cannot accuse the biden team of normalizing political violence trump has been

00:12:25.860 normalizing political violence for nearly nine years but the fact that it is now even more difficult to

00:12:34.260 talk about who he is the fact that now he gets to go to the republican convention and pretend

00:12:40.500 to be a uniter rumor has it that he intends to take the moral high ground here it will be interesting to see

00:12:48.900 how long he can maintain that pose that's not the sort of person he is everything we knew about trump before

00:12:57.300 saturday is still true even though he was almost killed by an assassin's bullet but i will be the first to concede that

00:13:06.500 the democrats are in a very difficult position compounded of course by the fact that they can't

00:13:12.020 seem to figure out how to get a truly unelectable candidate out of the way so that they can run

00:13:18.500 somebody who can speak fluidly about the most important issues we face as a country what such a

00:13:25.460 person will be able to say about trump in the aftermath of this that will be politically palatable

00:13:31.540 that will be a very interesting high wire act but we shall see anyway as i said i'm planning to speak

00:13:39.540 with ann applebaum later in the week no doubt she'll have a thought or two on this topic until next time

00:14:00.740 just have a fun time

00:14:08.820 so

Making Sense - Sam Harris - July 16, 2024

#375 — On the Attempted Assassination of President Trump

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