The U.S. has a political violence problem. Can we solve it before it's too late?
The executive residence in Uptown Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, sits hard against the east bank of the Susquehanna River.
On the other side of Front Street, hundreds of walkers, runners and tourists pass the neo-Georgian mansion, built in 1968, every single day.
It's a beautiful and stately building. It's hosted art exhibits, Easter egg hunts, Christmas parties and often very tense political negotiations.
But as much as it's a ceremonial building, it's also someone's house. Pennsylvania's governors stay there when they're not at their own homes elsewhere in the Keystone State.
Republican Gov. Tom Ridge used to fly in from Erie. Republican Gov. Tom Corbett stayed there when he wasn't at his home in suburban Pittsburgh. Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell stayed there when he wasn't back home in Philadelphia. So did Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, who used to commute in from nearby York County.
It's as much a part of the capital city's landscape as the state Capitol building, which sits on a hill around a mile or so south in downtown Harrisburg.
And sometime in the early hours of Sunday morning, a local resident scaled the fence, eluded police, and broke into the three-story, 29,000-square-foot home, set off homemade incendiary devices and fled.
Pennsylvania's Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, his family and friends were asleep when State Police security roused them at 2 a.m. and evacuated them as the fire raged. They had celebrated the Jewish holiday of Passover at the residence on Saturday night.
No one was hurt. And police have arrested the person believed to be responsible for this act of political violence. Shapiro and his family live in suburban Montgomery County, about 100 miles from the capital city.
The person charged with the crime told police when he surrendered that he planned to beat Shapiro with a small sledgehammer if he found him, according to court documents released Monday. He also 'harbored hatred' toward Shapiro, according to CBS News in Philadelphia.
And as I thought about all the time I had spent in that building, covering events for Republicans and Democrats alike, I could only think of one thing:
What if the next assassination attempt is successful?
It's not academic. There's no doubt that the U.S. has a political violence problem. Sooner or later, someone is going to get killed.
And it is a bipartisan plague. Consider just the recent record.
There were two attempts on President Donald Trump's life on the campaign trail in 2024. Someone tried to kill the husband of former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Authorities foiled a kidnapping plot aimed at Michigan's Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., survived a grim attempt on her life. And U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., was seriously wounded in 2017.
There is understandably widespread public concern about this problem. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of respondents to an October 2024 poll by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights said they were concerned about political violence.
More worryingly, there is no consensus on how to solve it. And some Americans — 1 in 5 respondents to an April 2024 PBS/Marist College poll — think violence may solve the nation's political divisions.
We already know the nation has an antisemitism problem. Throw in the toxic rage of political violence, and the challenge multiplies exponentially.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Shapiro said he would not be intimidated by efforts to try to stop him from doing his job or exercising his faith.
'When we were in the state dining room last night, we told the story of Passover' and the exodus of the Jews from slavery in Egypt to freedom, Shapiro said, according to The Associated Press. 'I refuse to be trapped by the bondage that someone attempts to put on me by attacking us as they did here last night. I refuse to let anyone who had evil intentions like that stop me from doing the work that I love.'
And because we seem to need yet another reminder about our national malaise, Shapiro had it for us.
'We don't know the person's specific motive yet,' Shapiro said during a news conference on Sunday before the arrest.
'But we do know a few truths. First: This type of violence is not OK. This kind of violence is becoming far too common in our society. And I don't give a damn if it's coming from one particular side or the other, directed at one particular party or another or one particular person or another. It is not OK, and it has to stop. We have to be better than this.'
As the political commentator Chris Cillizza pointed out on Monday morning, there were more than a few of us who celebrated when Luigi Mangione allegedly gunned down a health care executive on the streets of midtown Manhattan.
And the numbers show that some of us think that taking up arms, either against our elected officials, or each other, to solve our political problems is more than ok.
We can say, 'Well, that's not who we are.' But it is — time and again, it is exactly who we are.
Just like Cillizza, and every great mind thinking about this, I have no idea how to stop this mania that's overtaken us. But it has to stop.
Because next time, we may not be so lucky.
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