In the wake of the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump, Councilmember Courtney Johnston brought a late-filed resolution to Tuesday's Metro Council meeting about political violence that condemned the shooting while a group of neo-Nazis disrupted part of that same meeting.
Since it was filed late, the council had to agree to suspend the rules for it to be considered during the meeting. Councilmembers Terry Vo and Ginny Welsch objected.
Vo told the Scene's sister publication the Nashville Post she objected to the suspension of the rules because she believed giving the resolution time to go through the normal committee process provided an opportunity to address violence and hateful political rhetoric as a whole. She said she wanted to stand with members of the Asian American community in the wake of misinformation that has been particularly harmful to them.
Welsch said she did not support the suspension of the rules because she thought the resolution was too specific to the shooting rather than the general political violence the nation is seeing.
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After the objections, Johnston then left the meeting, visibly frustrated. Moments later, she shared a social media post calling the councilmembers “extremists” for their decision. Johnston said in a Facebook comment that she plans to timely file the resolution again before the next council meeting.
Welsch told the Post there is nothing extreme about a councilmember objecting to the suspension of the rules and added that it was simply excessive for Johnston to make that kind of statement. Welsch believed Johnston, who is running for a congressional seat, was looking for a moment for her campaign since she left right after the proposal to suspend the rules failed.
The controversy over the resolution, which focused on the political violence that left one man dead, injured two others and injured Trump, highlights the division in American politics today, many contend.
The Post discussed the history of assassination attempts, political division and extremism with Vanderbilt University’s John Geer, dean of the College of Arts and Science and a professor of political science, public policy and education. Geer is also the co-director of the Vanderbilt Poll. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
On the divisiveness of American politics
"According to the unity measure that Vanderbilt produces, we're more divided now than we were in 1968 [with the end of the civil rights movement]. The polarization is more stark so that you've got all [the current tensions] going on plus a candidate in Donald Trump, who has intentionally stoked the fires in a lot of different ways and played very hard to his base. … [The shooting] comes on the heels of, obviously, a debate performance by President Biden that drew notable concern — and understandable concern. Now you have this assassination attempt on Saturday, and you have the Republican Convention starting and the VP announcement for Donald Trump. There's just a ton of news out there. Both sides have different conceptions of unity, but both sides are going to try to talk about unity. But the Republicans are going to have a hard time pulling that off because they're about to go into a four-day, basically, infomercial attacking Joe Biden, and that's what they should do. This is not a criticism; it's an observation. So, you have something that they're going to try to claim is above politics and then engage in the basis of politics, which is what conventions are about. The layers of complication here are substantial. …
Given that the shooting did not hurt Trump in any substantial way, thankfully, what is [the public] reaction going to be? Are they going to actually say this act of violence against Donald Trump is a product of the Democrats and their rhetoric? Or are they going to say that it's actually a consequence of what Trump has done to politics, and therefore this is one of the outcomes of all that? That's going to be a product of the conversations that unfold both with the Republican Convention and the Democrats' response. And also, there’s just unfolding conversation. The narrative of [a few] days ago was about Biden's performance in the debates. No one's talking about that now. And so, how does that affect maybe even Biden's decision about staying on the ticket or not? We don't know about that and we'll see Trump’s pick [JD Vance] as his VP and what that says."
On how political violence could affect the vote
"This is part of the issue: What is this assassination attempt? How does it play out and affect the narrative? Because if it gets Americans worried about violence, it's not clear that this is a frame that helps the Republicans. Because on Jan. 6 — you can claim there wasn't violence — but people died and people were threatened, whether it be Vice President [Mike] Pence or Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi. … Does this, in fact, remind people of Jan. 6, as opposed to that these people weren't insurrectionists and criminals they're, in fact, patriots. You know, it may remind people of that. There's such a rush to judgment here. You have the conviction of Donald Trump as a felon, moves the polls a point or two. Joe Biden has a terrible debate performance, raising concerns about his age, moves the polls a point or two. What will happen with the assassination attempt and you have the Republican Convention. Maybe it moves the polls a point or two. We're not talking about big shifts. When Ronald Reagan suffered the assassination attempt in April of 1981, his approval ratings, which is not the same as voting, bumped up 20 points. You're not going to see a 20-point bump in Trump's approval rating or vote. That's not going to happen. We don't have that kind of flex in politics. But we'll see how it plays out."
On misinformation and lying
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"There's always been conspiracy theories in American politics. But right now, one of the biggest problems this country faces isn't polarization, though that's a problem. The bigger problem is that we've become untethered to evidence. In the course of the debate between Biden and Trump, where Biden fared so poorly, Trump told countless falsehoods, lies. He made stuff up. I mean, it was pretty amazing. That's not what American or any democracy should be about. We have a body of evidence. We have to decide and that's how you hold people accountable, whether the economy is doing well or not, or whether immigration is doing well or not, whether the foreign affairs are going well. Those are all things that people have to decide and they're based on a set of evidence. But if you all of a sudden make things up … we're in a dangerous era where we're not being constrained by evidence.
Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter went to battle in 1980 and they dealt with the realities of the evidence, and it was very much stacked against Carter. Reagan made the most of it and was elected. And four years later, Reagan had another set of evidence that showed things were better, and he was able to talk about that to great effect, swamping Walter Mondale in the 1984 election. That's what democracies are about. It's about accountability and accountability requires evidence. Donald Trump does not feel so constrained and that's a problem for small ‘d’ democracy."
On the history of attacks on candidates and presidents
"What's going on is certainly unprecedented. There has been turmoil in other elections. Obviously, 1968 Bobby Kennedy was assassinated — not just shot at, but killed. Martin Luther King, who wasn't officially part of the campaign, but [his death] certainly was an issue in the campaign. So ’68 is a particularly dark moment for that kind of thing. … I can't think of anybody since the start of the Republic, so to speak, where they've been shot during the actual campaign. … Teddy Roosevelt was, I believe, maybe shot in 1912 when he was running the Bull Moose Party. But I'd have to check on that. [Editor's note: This is correct.] But otherwise, it's just very infrequent. We know that there have been presidential assassinations and assassination attempts, whether it be Reagan or Gerald Ford on the attempt front, obviously John F. Kennedy, Lincoln, etc. There have been that but they've been sitting presidents. That's the other dynamic here. That's different is that this is a candidate for office, not somebody who's in the office and that needs to be kept in mind. … I should mention George Wallace. Wallace was shot as a candidate, not a nominee, but he was running for the ’72 Democratic nomination. …
There has been violence in American politics, without a doubt. We've referenced 1968 or ’72 so it's not unprecedented in that regard. But what's going on right now, we don't have any modern precedent for it. We also keep in mind, historically, there's only been one election in all of American history where you've had an incumbent president running against a former president. That was in 1892. So, it's been a very, very long time."
On the effect of local, state and federal elections
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"Certainly the stakes are higher on the presidency, and you do have the Secret Service that are there to protect. Most of the local candidates, I would understand why they might be concerned because there's a lot of unhappy people right now. They could do something violent but they're going to go after the bigger fish. If you're Sen. [Marsha] Blackburn or Gloria Johnson, you don't want to do something that's risky but I think that they should feel safe. But the fact that the question is being asked, which is a totally reasonable question to ask, is a sign of the times and the problem, because that shouldn't be the case. We should not be resorting, as President Biden said, to violence to solve our differences. That's what they did in Jan. 6. That was wrong. What happened in Butler, Penn., that was wrong. Without a doubt. We need to settle them at the ballot box, so to speak. Some people like to take matters into their own hands and just inflame things and that's human nature, I suppose. But it certainly isn't advancing the small ‘d’ democratic cause we've seen. …
I don't think it's going to affect Tennessee politics very much, unless some candidate says something that's just abhorrent, make some nasty comment about Trump and the shooting or Biden. But I think for the most part this is a national story. It's going to play out that way. Does it get the base to turn out at an even higher rate? If this was the end of October, sure, but it's not. The general election campaign really hasn't started. So, buckle up."
This article originally appeared in our sister publication, the Nashville Post.
