When Violence Pretends to Save Us

On assassination fantasies, broken systems, and the false promise of redemptive force

By LONNIE KING

In the aftermath of the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, a good amount of attention has turned to the alleged gunman’s manifesto—its grievances, its theology, its chilling confidence that violence could serve justice.

What struck me most, though, was not only the rage behind it. It was the illusion inside it.

The belief that removing one leader could meaningfully redeem a broken political order.

That is an old temptation.

History has long seduced people into believing evil can be defeated if only the right villain is eliminated.

Remove the tyrant. Strike down the oppressor. Destroy the monster. And justice will follow.

But history rarely cooperates with that fantasy.

Evil Is Rarely Solved by Removing One Man

Injustice is seldom carried by one person alone.

It lives in systems. In institutions. In appetites rewarded by culture. In citizens willing to excuse what they should resist.

And because of that, violence aimed at a person often leaves untouched the conditions that produced the problem in the first place. Sometimes it even strengthens them.

A dead leader can become a martyr. A movement can radicalize. Successors can emerge no less dangerous than the predecessor.

The wound may deepen.

Even if one despises a political figure—and I have not hidden my alarm about Donald Trump’s cruelty, recklessness, and corrosive rhetoric—the fantasy that killing one man would cure what ails America misunderstands the depth of the crisis.

The problem is not one man alone. It is a political culture capable of producing and rewarding what he represents.

And cultures are not healed by bullets.

When Violence Thinks It Can Purify History

There is another layer here that troubles me.

Violence often imagines itself as morally cleansing. As if bloodshed can purify history. As if force can do the work of moral repair. That is one of the oldest lies we tell ourselves.

Violence may remove a body. It does not heal a society. It does not rebuild trust. It does not teach a people how to live together.

And perhaps most dangerously, it often mirrors the very absolutism it claims to resist.

Once politics becomes a struggle between monsters and saviors, assassination can begin to feel virtuous. And when violence feels virtuous, democracy is already in grave trouble.

When Righteousness Becomes a License

There is a harder question this moment raises, especially for people of faith:

Why do some Christians condemn vigilante violence while spiritually rationalizing large-scale violence when clothed in patriotism?

That may be uncomfortable to ask. But it matters.

Because many believers rightly recoil at political assassination while showing far less moral unease when violence is carried out by nations, armies, or leaders framed as defending civilization.

And yet, if violence threatens human dignity, that concern cannot depend entirely on whose violence we are evaluating. Otherwise, righteousness becomes a license.

And once righteousness becomes a license, almost any cruelty can be narrated as necessity.

That is a dangerous spiritual habit. And it may not be as distant from the moral logic of political fanaticism as we would like to think.

Democracy Is Repaired by Cooperation, Not Redeemed by Force

The real work of resisting authoritarianism has never been glamorous. It is slower than rage. Less dramatic than violence. And infinitely harder.

Truth-telling. Resistance. Reform. Courage. The long, patient labor of democratic repair.

That work lacks the emotional satisfaction of vengeance. But unlike assassination, it has some chance of saving something. Because democracies are not redeemed by force. They are repaired by people willing to keep showing up for one another, even when cynicism feels easier.

That is slower work. But it is human work.

And it is holy work, too.

Grace and grit to you! — LK