Condemning violence is mandatory. Pretending it comes out of nowhere is irresponsible. The latest episode involving Donald Trump exposes, once again, the degraded state of American politics — to which the U.S. president has contributed decisively.
There is a difficult reality to ignore: violence tends to generate more violence. And today, few political figures have cultivated such a charged environment as Trump. Not only through aggressive, dehumanizing and incendiary language directed at opponents, journalists and minorities, but also through a trajectory marked by the normalization of abuse.
In 2023, he was found civilly liable for sexual abuse in the E. Jean Carroll case; years earlier, in the “Access Hollywood” recording, he spoke about women in terms that turned violence and consent into bravado. Political rhetoric has ceased to be a clash of ideas and has drifted dangerously close to a logic of enemies — and a culture of impunity.
There is also an institutional translation of this aggressiveness. ICE operations (the immigration “police”) have become a symbol of a migration policy marked by mass detentions, family separations and excessive use of force — one need only recall the case of Renée Nicole Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen shot dead by an ICE agent.
At the same time, operations conducted by the United States Navy targeting alleged drug trafficking networks in international waters have raised serious questions about proportionality and due process — with several deaths that never reach public scrutiny. Support for the genocide committed by Israel against Palestinians, the abduction of Maduro, the war in Iran — these are other examples of violence… this time disguised as foreign policy.
None of this justifies individual attacks. But it helps explain the climate. When violence — verbal or institutional — becomes routine language, it ceases to be an exception. It becomes part of the political ecosystem. And in that environment, the distance between word and action shortens dangerously.
The problem, therefore, is not just an armed or unstable individual. It is a political culture that has gradually lost its restraints. Escalation is rewarded, aggressiveness mobilizes, and the opponent is reduced to a target.
When politics feeds on permanent confrontation, we should not be surprised when it materializes. If there is a lesson to be drawn from this episode, it is this: it is not enough to condemn violence when it erupts.
