The election is just weeks away. The first presidential debate is just hours away. Both candidates have heightened the velocity and ferocity of their attacks. Events overseas are challenging Americans to choose sides. This is a volatile and dangerous time in our history.
Our country is clearly at a political and social crossroads. Democracy struggles to keep up with a population that increasingly can’t even agree on what are the facts. This is something that no one saw coming, and at its heart are social media platforms.
These platforms allow each user to express whatever they want to a boundless audience at the speed of light. With that ability comes a new measure of success and of personal worth, but more importantly a blurring of truth and fiction.
From our local school boards to statehouses to Washington, voters increasingly prefer personality to policy, often without regard to the consequences. Vitriol is now a virtue.
For years, our country has witnessed the rise of political violence in multiple ways. No single act is identical to any other. Many have been acts of lone wolf violence targeting national leaders, from Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and numerous members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans. Then came the harrowing events in Butler County, Pennsylvania, on July 13.
Days before that attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, Robert Pape from the University of Chicago’s Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST) and I convened a group of law enforcement leaders from across the nation to discuss new research showing a disturbing increase in the appetite for violent solutions to our political problems.
In the last 12 months, CPOST’s research team has identified an alarming upward trend in American adults who see political violence as a viable and legitimate way to solve our political disagreements. Pape’s team regularly surveys tens of thousands of American households with questions related to their political engagement and level of interest in both violent and nonviolent solutions.
In this past year, research by CPOST has shown that at least 3 million American adults are sufficiently radicalized and have the weaponry, training or experience via a militia to act violently on their beliefs. To be clear, not all of these will act — but the increase in the number of those who are willing to support violence cannot be ignored.
We took this information very seriously and immediately shared it with our colleagues in Milwaukee as they were preparing for the Republican National Convention. On July 9, we shared the same information with more than 50 police and sheriff’s departments representing “blue” and “red” communities throughout the nation.
Since the assassination attempt on Trump, many political leaders from both parties and from across the nation have stepped up to condemn political violence. This is an extraordinary expression of bipartisan opposition to political violence in America.
Which is why I joined my colleagues from the Illinois Sheriffs’ Association to release a letter signed by every sheriff from our state’s 102 counties decrying political violence in any form.
Our words are direct and straightforward: Violence for any reason is illegal, immoral and anti-American!
To date, Illinois is one of the only states to express such a unified message from its top elected law enforcement officials. We call on every leader of law enforcement — sheriffs and police chiefs — across the United States to make this statement publicly and multiple times throughout the 2024 election season.
Community leaders must understand the urgency of addressing political violence head on. As the momentous November election rapidly approaches, now is the time for local law enforcement leaders, elected officials, business leaders, and educational and religious leaders to stand up and take responsibility for their communities and their messaging, both intended and implied. They must add their crucial voices to national efforts by political leaders to say that political violence has no place in America.
Tom Dart is Cook County sheriff and a former Illinois prosecutor and state legislator.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.
