| Sixty-three years ago, the famous Hollywood director John Ford brought to the screen a film that would become an American classic, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence. It portrayed a mythical frontier town, Shinbone, dominated by a violent outlaw, Liberty Valence, who terrorized its residents with random outbursts of brutality. |
| The name, Liberty Valence, suggested that an inextricable connection between freedom and violence had shaped the American experience and was sown into American character. As a retrospective in The Guardianobserved, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is not a film about American heroes but about the country itself…. If The Great Gatsby is the great American novel, then this is the great American film…. Ultimately, America is a country built on violence, and thus to preserve its ideology, a bullet will always change more than words.” |
| That piece continues by noting that The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence is “a movie not driven by heroism but by regret at the choices and lies that were made in making America’s foundation.” Violence is, of course, not just foundational in the American experience, but a continuing presence in American life. |
| On July 26, in Traverse City, Michigan, a town of 15,000 people, we were again reminded of that presence when eleven people were stabbed while doing one of the most ordinary of things, shopping at Walmart. Before that tragedy, Traverse City was best known as the location of the National Cherry Festival. |
| But in a few brief minutes, it came to resemble Ford’s fictional Shinbone, site of what Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan’s governor, called a “brutal act of violence.” The brutality was made worse because it seemed so senseless. Preliminary investigation “suggested that the stabbings were 'random acts’ and the victims 'not predetermined.’” |
| What happened in Traverse City is, unfortunately, not an isolated incident. Last year, for example, a man stabbed four girls ages 9 to 17 in a movie theater. He did so “without saying anything and without any warning.” |
| And USA Todayreports that as of March 5, 2024, 44 of the mass murders committed in the United States since 2006, had involved a knife. Mass stabbings of the kind that occurred in Traverse City are, of course, less common than the kind of gun violence that takes many lives in this country every year, but, as Professors Joshua Harms and Madison Bush explain, “The second most common weapon used in the commission of a homicide in the USA are knives. On average, more than 1,500 people are murdered with a knife each year in the USA.” |
| Stabbing someone is a much more brutal and personal way to kill them than shooting. The latter can be done from a distance, but that is not true for knife violence. |
| It is more direct, tactile, and personal. Because of that, stabbing someone seems particularly sadistic. |
| Liberty Valence did not use a knife to inflict pain. He used a whip, another method in which the perpetrator of violence can feel its impact register on the victim. |
| Imagine that feeling registering eleven times. |
| For the last decade, the fact of violence in American life has been stoked by the dominating presence of Donald Trump. Let me be clear: I don’t think we can draw a direct line between anything the president has said and any particular act of violence in this country, including what happened in Michigan. |
| America had plenty of violence and sadistic cruelty before the president came on the scene. But since then, there have been many Liberty Valence-like moments involving him. |
| For example, in March, President Trump posted on Truth Social the following warning to the terrorist group, Hamas: “RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW, OR THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY LATER! I am sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job, not a single Hamas member will be safe if you don’t do as I say.” |
| To make sure no one misunderstood, the president said, “if you hold Hostages. If you do, you are DEAD!” And on July 27, he observed about Hamas, “I think they want to die…They’re Going to Be Hunted Down.” |
| In November last year, US Newspublished a list of people and groups in the United States that President Trump has threatened with violence. It noted that “Trump has long targeted his opponents with violent language, sometimes implicitly – but often explicitly – threatening specific individuals and groups with death or execution.” |
| Recall that in 2015, talking about a man at one of his rallies, Trump suggested, “Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing.” During another campaign rally, he told the crowd, “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.” |
| Then, in September 2023, explaining how he would deal with crime if he were returned to the White House, Trump issued the following warning: “If you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store. Shot.” |
| Such words have consequences. |
| Research has found that “Threats and actual violence against groups and individuals singled out and demonized by Trump increased. The targets of his verbal attacks were, most of all, racial, ethnic, and religious minorities, the news media collectively and individual journalists, and well-known politicians, mostly Democrats.” |
| That study “examined Trump’s online and offline hate speech, the rhetorical reactions of his followers, and the violent consequences suffered by their declared enemies. We found that contrary to an old children’s rhyme ('Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me’) Trump’s aggressive, divisive, and dehumanizing language was seconded by his followers and inflicted directly or indirectly psychological and physical harm to Trump’s declared enemies.” |
| In the case of the stabbings in Traverse City, there is nothing to suggest that the man who carried out the attack is one of the president’s followers. In fact, it didn’t take long for some of the president’s allies to suggest the opposite and link the stabbing to immigrants. Like Liberty Valence, they are quick to direct their rage against outsiders. |
| To offer one example, Laura Loomer noted that “The man who just stabbed nearly a dozen innocent people inside a Walmart in Michigan is being described by witnesses as 'a foreign guy.’” |
| “Sadly,” she continued, “Michigan has been destroyed by Islamic invaders who have ruined majority European cities in Michigan that have now been ruined by women in Burkas and the stench of Shawarma. It’s highly likely that the man who stabbed people in Michigan today is an Islamic immigrant.” |
| Whether that is true or not, such speculation stokes the kind of fear and resentment that can lead to violence. We must recognize that just like in the film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, “the great civic danger posed by Donald Trump, [is] that the habits of his heart become the habits of our hearts; that his code of conduct becomes ours. That we delight in mistreating others almost as much as he does. That vengeance becomes nearly as important to us as it is to him.” |
| Day by day, in the land of our own Liberty Valence, it gets harder to avoid that danger and the “emotional [re]wiring of many otherwise good and decent people” that accompanies it. At the same time, it gets more and more important for all Americans to do so and to try to reduce violence in our culture and politics. |
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