Room for hope despite political violence says director of U.Va. Center for Politics

Sabato took to his own X account to say, “Anyone who dares praise this despicable act should be shunned right off the political stage.”

In an interview with WTOP, Sabato, the director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said the U.S. is a particularly violent country when it comes to politics.

“I hate to say that. … You do see an awful lot of political shootings — and not just of well-known political figures, but also of people at polling places and people at political rallies,” he said.

Sabato cited two factors: “The easy availability of guns almost certainly plays a role in this,” and the growing divide that’s making the nation more “polarized politically.”

“We have been for a long time, and it’s become more intense,” he said.

The political assassinations of the 1960s — from Medgar Evers to John F. Kennedy, to Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X — are well documented, Sabato said, but political violence didn’t end there.

Sabato ticked off other attempts in the following decades, “President Reagan’s shooting; two attempts on President Ford’s life; an attempt on Jimmy Carter’s life.”

He was also quick to point out that violence connected to politics is not a modern phenomenon.

“Political polarization was even worse at the turn of the 19th into the 20th century. There are lots of studies on that,” Sabato said. “I always tell people who say ‘it’s worse than it’s ever been,’ two words: Civil War.”

However, Sabato said despite the sentiment that “things are bad” now, he doesn’t see the nation on a path toward another civil war. But referring to the current climate he said, “We have to do something about it.”

While Sabato is a staunch defender of political debate, “Those who are extreme and willing to use violence, they have to be put away. I mean, that’s what we have prisons for, I’m sorry. I’m not an old softie on things like that.”

While Kirk’s death took place on a university campus as he was set to engage in debate, Sabato said he does believe that more political debate, not less, is required.

“We have to make an effort to do it,” Sabato said. “You bring people together of differing political philosophies and give them the opportunity to express themselves and to do so vigorously … then to try to find points of agreement.”

Tyler McGettigan was in the crowd in at Utah Valley University on Wednesday, hoping to ask Kirk a question when he was shot.

“It’s unconscionable that someone would do this, first of all, but what does this mean going forward?” he told WTOP’s Nick Iannelli. “People are going to be scared to put on political events where they’re literally just talking. It’s ridiculous that that’s kind of the direction we’re going in, that people are essentially being silenced.”

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