Chris Christie: Will Trump Meet the Moment?

There is no place for political violence in this country. That is the recurring sentiment expressed by elected officials and political leaders since the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.

That is an honorable sentiment, but it is much too easy. The harsh truth is that there is political violence in this country. And it did not just start on Saturday. It has been here since the very first days of this nation.

The difference between allowing the violence permeating our cultural fabric to remain the political norm and rejecting it outright has always come down to the will, actions and leadership of the men and women of this country to steer a different course.

That will has been bent, and it has been broken. Little by little, we have watched as the desire and the resolve of Americans to push back against this violence dissipate and all but disappear. We saw it on Saturday. We saw it on Jan. 6, 2021, and its aftermath. We saw it during the worst excesses of the Black Lives Matter protests. We saw it in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017.

Now we might be able to begin to turn this around.

Mr. Trump has the opportunity to rein in some of the worst rhetorical impulses of the Republican Party at its convention this week. He can point the party and its leadership in a new direction in the wake of the assassination attempt against him.

Early indications are less than promising. Mr. Trump’s selection of Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio as his running mate doubles down on the portion of the party already completely devoted to him rather than reaches out to the broader party and beyond. Mr. Vance’s first reaction to the assassination attempt against Mr. Trump was to turn directly to the current, flawed playbook: demonize the other side and lay the blame at the feet of the Democrats, as if they had pulled the trigger themselves.