Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) announced that she is canceling a planned town hall in Michigan, citing safety concerns amid what she described as an overheated political climate. “It just didn’t feel like a safe time to be doing a public event,” she said in a video message. Holding up a book on dignity by conflict-resolution scholar Donna Hicks, Balint urged Vermonters to “get back to the basics of how we interact with each other as human beings.”

Her announcement came in the shadow of the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. The killing, which drew shock across the country, also prompted disturbing comments and celebrations online, including from some Vermonters. Just days earlier, Balint herself had posted a visibly shaken Instagram video condemning the violence — a message that carried the weight of someone suddenly aware of the consequences of the rhetoric that has saturated American politics.

But while Balint now invokes “dignity,” her own record in office has often modeled something else entirely. She has referred to Republicans as “mean motherfuckers,” accused Donald Trump of “building his own private army,” and labeled GOP activists a “Brown Shirt Army.” She has told supporters that Democrats “need to punch back” and “not be afraid to throw elbows,” adding that when Republicans push harmful legislation, “we have to hound them” and “make it hurt.”

A Broader Pattern

Balint is hardly the only Democrat who has used language that pushes beyond policy differences into dehumanization.

• Maxine Waters (D-CA) told supporters to “confront” Trump officials wherever they were found, and to let them know “they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”
• Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), railing against the Supreme Court in 2020, declared that Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch had “released the whirlwind” and “will pay the price.” Days later, menacing protests swelled outside Kavanaugh’s home, and in 2022 a man was arrested outside the Justice’s house with a handgun and zip ties.
• President Joe Biden has warned that “MAGA extremists pose a grave threat to democracy,” a framing that paints tens of millions of Americans not just as wrong, but as dangerous.
• Vice President Kamala Harris has openly called Trump a “fascist.”
• Nancy Pelosi earlier this year said that if Trump’s “MAGA Republicans or Elon Musk had their way, many will die as a result.”

These statements may rally a partisan crowd, but they also escalate political opponents from adversaries to enemies — a framing that has consequences in a climate already primed for violence.

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Dignity as a Yardstick

That’s what makes Balint’s invocation of Donna Hicks so striking. Hicks, a conflict-resolution scholar who has worked in some of the world’s most divided societies, built her “Dignity Model” around ten principles: acceptance of identity, recognition, safety, fairness, understanding, giving the benefit of the doubt, and accountability among them.

Measured against Hicks’s standard, much of today’s political rhetoric fails. Balint calling Republicans “mean motherfuckers” violates acceptance of identity. Comparing GOP voters to a “Brown Shirt Army” strips safety and recognition. Schumer’s “you will pay the price” line denies fairness and stokes fear. Harris branding Trump a “fascist,” or Biden declaring millions of Americans a “grave threat,” violates the principle of granting the benefit of the doubt. Pelosi’s warning of mass death pushes beyond argument into alarmism.

Hicks teaches that when dignity is violated, people feel humiliated and retaliate; when it is honored, conflict can be defused. By that measure, Democratic leaders now calling for civility are often guilty of undermining it themselves.

The Pivot After Violence

The juxtaposition is jarring. For years, Balint and her colleagues have told supporters to confront, hound, punch, and resist Republicans framed as existential dangers. Then, after Kirk’s assassination, those same leaders shifted quickly to calls for calm. Balint canceled her town hall. Pelosi called the killing “reprehensible.” Harris is disturbed and sending her prayers.

The message now, especially from Democrats, is that Republicans need to “turn down the rhetoric before someone else gets hurt.” But in practice, the Democrats themselves have helped set the temperature.

Words Have Consequences

It is impossible to draw a straight line from any single remark to an act of violence. But the cumulative effect of describing political rivals as Nazis, fascists, killers, and “mean motherf***ers” is to frame them not as fellow citizens, but as enemies of humanity. In such a climate, it is not surprising when unstable individuals take those words literally.

Balint is right that dignity is needed. But if dignity is to mean anything, it must apply not only after tragedy, but before. Otherwise, the cycle repeats: leaders escalate with fiery words, violence follows, and only then do they call for calm.

The question that lingers, in Vermont and across the nation, is simple: What in the hell did they think was going to happen?

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Dave Soulia | FYIVT

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