Editorial: Votes, not violence should decide elections

Americans received a sobering reminder on Saturday of the threat that political violence poses to our democracy. It is a mercy that Donald Trump was not seriously injured by gunfire at an evening campaign rally in Butler, a Pennsylvania city north of Pittsburgh, and a tragedy that at least one person at the rally was killed. We hope that Mr. Trump recovers quickly and fully.

There is much we don’t know yet about the gunman and the shooting, which is being investigated as an attempted assassination. But this much is clear: Any attempt to resolve an election through violence is abhorrent. Violence is antithetical to democracy. Ballots, not bullets, should always be the means by which Americans work through their differences.

It is now incumbent on political leaders of both parties, and on Americans individually and collectively, to resist a slide into further violence and the type of extremist language that fuels it. Saturday’s attack should not be taken as a provocation or a justification.

Americans also must be cleareyed about the challenge that is confronting this nation. Saturday’s events cannot be written off as an aberration. Violence is infecting and inflecting American political life.

Acts of violence have long shadowed American democracy, but they have loomed larger and darker of late. Cultural and political polarization, the ubiquity of guns and the radicalizing power of the internet have all been contributing factors, as this board laid out in its editorial series “The Danger Within” in 2022. This high-stakes presidential election is further straining the nation’s commitment to the peaceful resolution of political differences.

Democracy requires partisans to accept that the process is more important than the results. Even before Saturday’s events, there were worrying signs that many Americans are failing that essential test.

In a survey conducted last month by the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, 10 percent of respondents agreed that the use of force was justified to prevent Mr. Trump from becoming president, and 7 percent said the use of force was justified to return Mr. Trump to the presidency.

Mr. Trump’s political agenda cannot and must not be opposed by violence. It cannot and must not be pursued through violence.

The attack on Saturday was a tragedy. The challenge now confronting Americans is to prevent this moment from becoming the beginning of a greater tragedy.

This election must be resolved by the votes Americans will cast.