On the solemn trek home a few weeks ago from a festive White House Correspondents’ Dinner cut short by the violent intrusion of alleged attempted assassin Cole Tomas Allen, I received a text from a worried friend. I called her to say that I was fine and that near as I could tell no guests had been injured, evacuation of the enormous Washington Hilton ballroom had proceeded in an orderly fashion, and the chilly evening air suited the night’s chilling events. Before hanging up, I expressed the worry that while the nation had dodged a catastrophe, the shots ringing out in the ballroom foyer that evening would exacerbate the fever gripping both parties.
Soon I was walking by the National Zoo, where on any given day one can casually mingle with Washingtonians of diverse classes, races, ethnicities, and political affiliations. How remote was that taken-for-granted civic achievement, I thought, from the crush-and-destroy mentality currently favored by the political class and the dark narrative of American depravity, pouring fuel on the partisan fires, routinely promulgated at our colleges and universities.
Later in the evening, not long after my private musings about the sources of civic strife in America, President Donald Trump held an impromptu and surprisingly conciliatory press conference at the White House. The president appeared composed, focused, and determined. Instead of faulting hotel security for allowing the heavily armed intruder to charge the ballroom, he lavished praise on the Secret Service’s and law enforcement’s response. And rather than exploit the occasion to denounce Democrats and the left, he praised constitutional principles that citizens of diverse persuasions should share.
