A federally funded program in a Pennsylvania community to reduce political violence brings a diverse set of community members together to grapple with polarization, misinformation, and distrust.
Before the attempt on former President Trump’s life, there had been rising incidents of harassment and threats of violence against public officials. Can the U.S. stem the tide?
Since the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump devotees, conservative Pennsylvania radio hostess Michele Jansen has been working to change her tenor and tone and find a way to be a “Pennsylvania uniter” while maintaining decidedly conservative positions.
She and others are concerned about rising incidents of political violence, as well as the escalating harassment of public officials, including violent threats. Over 80% of local officials said they had experienced incidents of such harassment in a recent survey by the National League of Cities.
The Associated Press says that "members of Congress have been shot. One lawmaker’s staffers in Virginia were attacked with a baseball bat. In Louisville, a bullet grazed the mayor’s sweater after someone stormed into his campaign office. Someone put tracking device on the Reno mayor’s car. Officials in South Carolina received death threats over a solar panel plant. And outside Buffalo, a man threw a dummy pipe bomb through the window of a county clerk candidate’s home — with a message reading: 'if you don’t drop out of this race, the next pipe bomb will be real.' "
In Pennsylvania, Jansen has volunteered to be a coordinator for an initiative funded by the Department of Homeland Security called Uniting To Prevent Targeted Violence. The funding includes $20 million in grants annually for violence prevention and counterterrorism, including to local nonprofits and other organizations trying to find ways to prevent political violence before it germinates within local communities, reports the Christian Science Monitor.
Jansen began working with the nonprofit Urban Rural Action, which received a federal grant. She helped recruit volunteers in Franklin County, trying to build a team as politically and culturally diverse as possible. Its aim was to develop projects that would build social cohesion.
These violence prevention efforts adopt a public-health approach, addressing violence in the way health experts would urge better nutrition and exercise. The long-term goal is to safeguard communities against violence and drain the pool of potential perpetrators.
“Political hostility and animosity contributes to a climate of fear and violence,” says Joe Bubman of Urban Rural Action, who cut his teeth working on violence reduction in conflicts in Africa and Asia. Now he applies these skill sets closer to home.
Some collaborations proved more fruitful than others. The Monitor tells the story about everyday Americans grappling with polarization, anomie, and distrust, a story of hopes, fears, and a determination to discover what it means to build peace in a democracy under stress.
The setting is Chambersburg, like many towns in rural America, a blue-tinged atoll in a sea of red. It’s part of Franklin County, which hasn’t voted for a Democratic president since 1964.
In nearby Gettysburg, Chad Collie is a paid coordinator for Urban Rural Action’s participation in the federal initiative to prevent targeted violence.
“We’re putting together a group of people who would normally not talk to one another,” Collie says. Last year, he drove to Harrisburg for a weekend meeting at a community college where his team and others would be brainstorming their collective projects.
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Other Urban Rural Action teams in Pennsylvania work with suicide prevention organizations, veterans outreach, and other kinds of social services.
The Franklin County team had setbacks. Team members wanted to prioritize outreach to people facing personal crises – like those who don’t know how to access public services like housing assistance, a lack of knowledge that can potentially drive some people to radicalize.
Both of the nonprofits they tried to work with backed out of their proposed projects for various reasons. Jansen felt frustrated, even though she was encouraged by their meetings with local law enforcement about how to assess potential threats of violence