It’s what we believe that counts. Many of our beliefs are actually false. My column today in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Special to the Post-Gazette

Sep 22, 2025

4:30 AM

In the wake of the assassination of conservative activist and icon Charlie Kirk, The New York Times editorialized that we need “to turn down the volume.” This gets the matter of political violence exactly wrong.

It’s not what we say that leads to political violence, but what we believe to be true. The question is whether what we believe is true.

Satisfied with death

Many otherwise decent Americans are indifferent, if not grimly satisfied, when their political opponents are hurt or killed. A lot of people on the left agreed with Laura Sosh-Lightsy, Assistant Dean of Students at Middle Tennessee State University, who lost her job over her social media post after the shooting: “Looks like ol’ Charlie spoke his fate into existence. Hate begets hate. ZERO sympathy.”

This callousness over Kirk’s death — the father of two young children — was nothing compared to the glee Donald Trump, Jr., displayed over the vicious hammer attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband in 2022. He posted a meme with a photo of underwear and a hammer with the caption: “Got my Paul Pelosi Halloween costume ready.”

His father was not much better. Trump’s comments included this dig at Pelosi: “she’s against building a wall at our border, even though she has a wall around her house — which obviously didn’t do a very good job.”

Nor did many people on the right agonize over the June 14 murder of former Michigan Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and the wounding of a sitting state senator and his wife. At that time, Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee sounded just like Sosh-Lightsy, “This is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way.”

The reason we express such terrible thoughts is that a lot of us feel our opponents brought violence on themselves by their outrageous and dangerous actions.

To deal with the problem of violence, we have to be honest with ourselves about why political violence is not justified.

Our country was brought into being when citizens were oppressed and picked up rifles. When the Supreme Court in 2008 interpreted the Second Amendment to protect the personal right to possess a gun, Justice Antonin Scalia made it clear that the reason for this right has nothing to do with crime and hunting.

The purpose of the right to bear arms is to have an armed population in case constitutional democracy breaks down and the government becomes tyrannical. The Constitution supports armed resistance in such extreme circumstances.

The logic of lies

This explains the violent attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. President Trump told that crowd, and otherwise has convinced millions of Americans, that the 2020 election was stolen. Not by dirty political tricks, but by out and out fraud.

Trump never explained how it was done, but it was on a big scale and on purpose. Democrats must have done something like jimmying voting machines to substitute votes for Joe Biden for votes for Trump.

This was all despicable lies. But what if it were true? Then Biden and his henchmen are criminals and traitors. Every American should have been at the Capitol violently resisting. That is why Trump had to pardon everyone involved on Jan. 6, even those who attacked the police.

By the logic of his lies, they were all patriots. If Democrats would steal an election, they are not legitimate participants in constitutional government. If you believe this, why would you be outraged by political violence against them?

Trump doesn’t need to tone down his rhetoric to heal America. He just needs to finally tell the truth about the 2020 election.

There are millions of Democrats who believe that Trump is a nascent Hitler. Admittedly, not the Hitler of the death camps, but the Hitler of 1934, gradually destroying democracy in Germany. If you genuinely believe that, why would you be outraged by the two recent attempts to assassinate him?

By this logic, the assassination of Kirk was the equivalent of murdering Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s master of propaganda.

If Trump is about to militarily occupy U.S. cities, arresting U.S. citizens, cancelling the 2026 election, or having only his allies count the ballots, of course you would be justified in violent resistance.

The reason that political violence is not justified today is the same reason that the attack on the Capitol was not justified. These things are not true.

Not rhetoric, but belief

I could not have written this column in Berlin in 1934. The courts are all open. Sometimes Trump wins in the Supreme Court. Sometimes he loses. Court orders are obeyed.

I don’t like mass raids and deportations, but we never have changed the law. People here without documentation were always subject to arrest and deportation. I’m sorry law firms and universities gave in to Trump’s bullying, but those who resisted have already been vindicated in court.

It’s absurd to have to write it, but Trump is not Hitler.

This is not a matter of rhetoric. Words matter. But beliefs matter first. To end political violence, we don’t need to turn down our volume. We have to reconsider our beliefs.

Bruce Ledewitz is professor of law emeritus at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University. He writes every other Monday. The views expressed do not represent those of Duquesne University. His previous article was “Our state Supreme Court justices are partisan, but not completely.”