My favorite poem, my -- my favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote:
"Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country ...
We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We've had difficult times in the past -- and we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it's not the end of disorder.
But the vast majority of [people] in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.
And let's dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.
Bobby Kennedy, 1968
GP is currently the highest comment, and on other sites I've visited, while too many people cheer this or call for violent retaliation, most of the highly-upvoted comments (both liberal and conservative) condemn it and argue for de-escalation.
Anger and fear are powerful emotions, but so is hope. Barack Obama campaigned on hope and became President, winning his first election with the highest %votes since 1988. Donald Trump also became President in part due to hope; his supporters expected him to improve their lives, while most of Hillary Clinton's and Kamala Harris's supporters just expected them to not make things worse. Now lots of people desperately need hope, and if things get worse more will.
Irrational hope can be dangerous: all the time, people make decisions that backfire horribly, and deep down they knew those decisions would backfire horribly, but they made them anyways out of desperation for an unlikely success. Perhaps this is another example, where the assassin delusionally hoped it would somehow promote and further their desires, but it will almost certainly do the opposite.
But hope can also be rational, and unlike anger and fear (which at best prevent bad things), hope can intrinsically be for causing good things. If a group or candidate that runs on hope for a better world gets enough attention and perceived status, it could turn public perception back to unity and optimism.
I am not claiming this is true. But merely that if I was employed to destabilize the US, I would claim to have been responsible for a number of recent events in order to please my boss.
I am hoping the possibility of a joint common enemy can perhaps unite people in America a bit.
The guy who shot Trump in the ear had (arguably) no particular ideology or goal, just an interest in assassinations and a possible depressive disorder.