Daily Herald opinion: From ‘average’ to ‘abnormal’: Sometimes even the axioms against political violence have their limits

If there is anything constructive to be said in the aftermath of the third attempt on Donald Trump’s life in less than two years, it must surely be that all the things said in the wake of these detestable events are still true.

• Reasonable people, whatever their politics, cannot allow extremists, especially violent extremists, to distract from the civil democratic process for dealing with differences of opinion on even the most sensitive issues.

• In a period of harsh political divisions, we still must moderate the tone of our commentaries, social media posts and public statements. An atmosphere of harsh and combative rhetoric stirs the passions of people who may be prone to violence and increases the chances for violent acts to feel normalized.

• Violence toward public figures must be condemned and rejected regardless of the political views of the target.

• We must do a better job of restricting access to weapons, especially for people with histories of mental health or behavioral issues that could lead to violence.

• Experts charged with protecting public figures must review security protocols whenever a setting is breached and political leaders are threatened.

These observations are so common, sadly, that most of us likely can recite them in our sleep.

And yet, what we know so far about the man who stormed the White House Correspondents Dinner Saturday suggests that even these profound familiarities can have a limited scope.

The man accused of carrying a list of political targets, including President Trump, seems to be no groomed political extremist. At most, he is described as non-political engineering graduate with a personal background in evangelical Christianity — “a completely average guy” in the phrase of one of the students he had tutored. He seems to have no known history of mental health issues or mental disabilities, yet he embarked on an amateurish mission to cause serious mayhem carrying only a shotgun, a pistol and three knives.

That he was able to achieve the level of success he did is, as much as anything, a demonstration of the great difficulty in identifying would-be political assassins before they strike. If they could be this person, it seems, they literally could be anyone.

But this does not dilute the importance of the usual platitudes. We do need to moderate our rhetoric. We do need to be more respectful of others in our personal actions, writing and social media posts. We do need to do more to identify people with mental health issues and keep dangerous weapons away from them.

And we do need to condemn any and all political violence.

But in the end, we also must be aware that it can happen at any time and be committed by someone who seems the most unlikely of suspects. To that extent, we must be grateful for the Secret Service agents who protect our leaders and, for that matter, our state and local police and security forces who are on constant guard for the abnormal at every level.

Their long hours of intense planning to prevent tragedies and their quick response when danger arises does as much as anything can to assure that the frightening disruption of, say, a large public gathering by a “completely average guy” does not turn into a broad and completely abnormal national tragedy.