The recent murder of Charlie Kirk, the assassination of Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman, and the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump have formed a sad trend in contemporary America: politically-motivated killings.

As Americans, we seem to have lost the ability to dialogue with one another, to remind ourselves that the overwhelming majority of people do in fact want a better America. We all want a safer, more affordable, and healthier country – we just don’t often agree on how to make that happen.

We’ve been here before as a nation. In the 1960s, the assassinations of President Kennedy, Malcolm X, Robert F. Kennedy, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. created a pattern of political violence that is unfortunately echoed in contemporary America. The turbulence of the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War fueled political violence. Today, the instability of a post-pandemic society, costly foreign entanglements, and an affordability crisis threaten the security of an already divided American democracy. 

It feels as though American politics exists over an ever-widening chasm. It feels as though the fabric of American society is tearing at the seams – healthy discussion is becoming a rarity, replaced by shouting matches and caricatures. Restitching that fabric is something that portends the need for an enormous amount of effort. It’s a task that seems impossible.

But it’s not impossible. America has been in a situation like this before, and we made it to the other side in one piece. A solution will take a willingness to listen and empathize, which may be difficult, but it’s possible; we have to believe it is. A hope-filled future requires it. 

In the meantime, we at The Plank hope and pray for an end to this violence and for a healthier America.