TIO Public Square
Physical Violence or Honest Dialogue?
by Robert P. Sellers
The public square is a historic, generous space where healthy dialogue can occur. Disagreements, however, can always arise in these places. Because people come from diverse backgrounds or stages in life – representing distinct races or socio-economic classes and championing conflicting philosophies or loyalties, when they meet there – whether physically or virtually, they may naturally argue with one another. Nonetheless, providing a safe, non-threatening location to voice differences is precisely one of the reasons why societies should value these spaces.
In the New Testament book of Acts is a reference (17:16-34) to just such a place, identified as Mars Hill, a famous locale in Athens for philosophical debate and high-level decision-making. Also called the “Areopagus,” it was in that first-century public square where the Apostle Paul preached a sermon about the “Unknown God,” attempting to connect his faith perspective with a crowd of Athenian intellectuals.
Dialoguing in the public forum is an honored activity in a free and democratic society. I wrote about this contemporary American activity several months ago in an article titled “Dialoguing at the Square.”
The White House Correspondents’ Dinner
One famous, very visible location for airing philosophical differences is the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, sponsored by The White House Correspondents’ Association. The Association is a non-profit organization which numbers more than 900 member-journalists who report on the White House and represent some 250 news outlets, viewpoints, and media from all across America and the world. Each year, its televised dinner raises money for scholarships for young journalists and honors the recipients of the year’s journalistic awards.
On April 25, the dinner was beginning in the Washington Hilton ballroom, where it has been safely held for numerous years. This year’s banquet, however, will always be remembered because of an assassination attempt perpetrated against President Trump and high-ranking members of his Cabinet. The plan had been fashioned almost three weeks before the event, on April 6, when California resident Cole Tomas Allen searched the internet for information about the 2026 Correspondents’ dinner. He learned that President Trump was attending the function for the first time, and noted where the gala would be celebrated. Allen was able to book a room at the Washington Hilton, checking into the hotel on April 24, the day before the dinner. Inexplicably, he was also able to bring into his room a pump-action shotgun, semi-automatic pistol and three knives, without creating suspicion or having to pass any security checks, even though the president, vice-president and other high officials were scheduled to be in the hotel within 24 hours.
On Saturday evening, the would-be assassin raced past a metal detector at a police checkpoint and fired his 12-guage shotgun at least once. He never made it down to the hotel floor where the ballroom was located, but in the melee which ensued, Secret Service agents immediately and forcefully rushed the president, vice-president, and Cabinet secretaries out of the ballroom to safety. Revelers attending the gala quickly went to the floor or ducked under tables, remaining in a state of panic and confusion until it was revealed the threat had been contained.
Violence Instead of Dialogue
The irony of what happened is stark: at a dinner honoring journalism – highlighting the freedom of the press to report, publish and disseminate information about the government as guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution – a violent attack occurred. More than 2,600 people had gathered precisely to celebrate the exchange of ideas through journalistic speaking and writing, while the exasperated gunman had concluded that words were no longer warranted or useful. But his alternative action was illegal and immoral. Physical violence cannot be condoned as the way to react to those with whom we disagree. Cole Tomas Allen was horribly wrong to believe killing his political enemies was the only remedy to his deep frustrations.
Perhaps Trump and his apologists will suggest that this quiet, seemingly nonviolent 31-year-old – who lived with his parents, studied at CalTech, tutored school children in the afternoons and attended the Pasadena United Reformed Church – suffered from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” This unofficial diagnosis is a psychological term coined by Charles Krauthammer, described as a "behavioral or psychological phenomenon characterized by intense emotional or cognitive reactions to Donald J. Trump … as observed in individuals or groups.” The manifesto police discovered in Allen’s hotel room certainly confirmed that he was overwhelmed with angst and anger concerning Trump’s behavior. Millions of Americans are also feeling intense distress about the nation’s current political leaders, so this young man’s state of mind is no mystery. But the solution he chose has shocked his parents, neighbors, and friends and is not the way disagreements should be handled.
Trump’s Own Violent Nature
Is there, however, another way to explain this third attempt to assassinate Donald Trump? Could it be argued, quoting the Old Testament prophet Hosea (8:7), that the president has sown the wind and is reaping the whirlwind? In his words and actions, Trump has certainly communicated that political violence is okay. Two journalists for The Atlantic have noted:
After the second attempt on his life, Donald Trump accused his political opponents of inspiring the attacks against him with their rhetoric. The reality, however, is that Trump himself has a long record – singular among American presidents of the modern era – of inciting and threatening violence against his fellow citizens, journalists, and anyone he deems his opposition.
Of the dozens of indisputable incidents when Trump has spoken or acted violently, only a few are needed to demonstrate that he has fostered political violence in the United States.
During a campaign rally in Iowa in February 2016, he said: “If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously, okay? Just knock the hell – I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. I promise, I promise.”
In a Republican primary debate that same month, he intoned: “I would bring back waterboarding. And I’d bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.”
In October 2018, Trump referred to then-Representative Greg Gianforte, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge for physically assaulting a reporter, “Any guy that can do a body slam, he is my guy!”
In June 2020, according to Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s memoir, Trump said about protesters outside the White House, “Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?”
On January 6, 2021, as rioters at the Capitol were chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” Trump tweeted: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country and our Constitution, giving states a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. [The] USA demands the truth!”
In November 2022, at a rally in Ohio, Trump talked about reporters who won’t reveal the sources of their information which is damaging to the President. To great applause, he threatened: You tell the reporter, “‘Who is it?’ And the reporter will either tell you or not. And if the reporter doesn’t want to tell you, it’s bye-bye, the reporter goes to jail. And when the reporter learns that he’s going to be married in two days to a certain prisoner that’s extremely strong, tough and mean, he will say, ‘You know’ … I think I’m going to give you the information.’”
In March 2023, at the conservative PAC summit, he said: “I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution”
Concerning the opposition of General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Trump suggested on Truth Social in September 2023, “This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH.”
Then in a Veterans Day speech that year, the president said: “We pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections. … The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within.”
In March 2024, leading up to the November presidential election, he predicted: “If I don’t get elected … it’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.”
Meanwhile, at a rally in October 2024 in Pennsylvania, he proposed a violent crackdown by police on lawbreakers, saying: “If you had one really violent day … one rough hour – and I mean real rough – the word will get out, and it will end immediately” [Ibid.].
Then, in Minnesota, Trump-inspired ICE agents murdered two American citizens – Renée Good, a mother of three children, and Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse who worked with veterans. More recently – to the shock and horror of millions of people of conscience around the world – Trump threatened to annihilate every living being in Iran and wipe away that country’s centuries-old civilization if the Strait of Hormuz was not reopened. Understanding nothing about Iran’s culture or the powerful impulse to “save face,” Trump sabotaged any effort at negotiations by posting on Truth Social: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
Even in the aftermath of this third attempted assassination, Trump verbally assaulted a respected news reporter. When Norah O’Donnell from CBS television’s “60 Minutes” interviewed him, she read what Allen had written in his manifesto: “I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.” Asking his response, the president said: “I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would, because you’re horrible people. Horrible people. Yeah, he did write that. I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody.”
Choosing the Better Way
Perhaps the events of April 25, 2026, can teach us something about handling our differences. To be sure, Cole Tomas Allen was never going to have a conversation with Donald Trump, and it would have been foolish for him to come to Washington hoping for such an opportunity. On the other hand, given the impossibility of talking with the president about his concerns, his only remaining recourse was not to buy weapons, transport them on a train from California to D.C., book a room at the Hilton Hotel, and attempt to storm the ballroom while firing his weapons at his enemies.
The totally insular status of the president – protected by armed agents sworn to sacrifice their own lives to protect his – necessitates a different way in a democracy for achieving political change. It is, instead, the right of each citizen to vote his or her conscience. While it may seem naïve and pollyannish for a single voter to consider his or her voice and vote a powerful deterrent – especially given the gerrymandering and voter suppression measures that are occurring now – it nonetheless remains the best way of bringing about change. In America, at least, it is true that the pen (or vote) is mightier than the sword.
Honest dialogue at the public square, which can lead to powerful persuasion and group solidarity around important ideas, is the way democracies were meant to function. Despite the incredibly poor role modeling to the contrary from the leader of the Free World, may it be so.
