Can the US avoid more political violence?

"Trump assassination attempt: The worst event that can happen in today's polarized America, and presages more political violence & social instability to come," US political analyst Ian Bremmer wrote on X, suggesting the dramatic impact that the attack on former US President Donald Trump could have on the United States.

Trump was shot at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday. A bullet grazed his ear, slightly injuring the former president, in an attack the FBI has designated an "assassination attempt." Another person was killed and two others seriously injured. 

Political violence targeting people, not property

A study published by the Reuters news agency shows Bremmer's concerns are justified. The August 2023 study found that the United States is in the midst of the largest sustained increase in political violence since the 1970s. According to the study, recent attacks have more often been directed against people, rather than property.

Since Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, authorities have recorded 213 cases of political violence, according to the Reuters report. Two-thirds of these cases were physically violent confrontations, and 18 of them ended fatally.

Threatened presidents

The Trump assassination attempt took place two days before the start of the four-day Republican Party Convention, at which the former president is expected to officially become the party's candidate in the 2024 presidential election.

"The shooting of Trump is a consequence of such significant support for political violence in our country," political scientist Robert Pape from the University of Chicago told the British Guardian newspaper. "We also need to worry about [the] threat in retribution to President Biden."

The causes of the rise in violence lie in distrust of political leaders and belief in conspiracy theories, according to a study published as part of the "Security and Threats" project.

The survey, which was published in June polled 2,061 people in the US. It found 10% of respondents said violence would be justified to prevent Trump from becoming president while 6.9% said it would be justified to use violence to restore Trump to the presidency.

Political violence is 'un-American'

While politicians in the United States and around the world condemned the attack on Trump, mud-slinging continued on social media.

"Today is not just some isolated incident," J.D. Vance, a Republican senator from Ohio and potential Trump vice president candidate, wrote on X, blaming President Joe Biden for the attack. "The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump's attempted assassination."

Gabby Giffords, a gun control activist and former member of the House of Representatives who resigned after suffering a severe brain injury after an assassination attempt in 2011, tried to break the wave of violence with a personal post.

"I'm holding former President Trump, and all those affected by today's indefensible act of violence in my heart," she wrote. "Political violence is un-American and is never acceptable — never."

The attack on Gifford in 2011 is seen as a harbinger of a rise in political violence in the United States. Since 2016, around the time Trump first ran for the presidency, significantly more incidents have been recorded, according to Gary LaFree, a criminologist at the University of Maryland.

More political violence since 2016

The criminologist has set up a terrorism database tracking cases of political violence from 1970 to 2020.

This includes the planned kidnapping of Michigan's Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, which was foiled by the FBI in October 2020, and the attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband in October 2022 shortly before the US midterm elections.

In contrast to the University of Chicago study, criminologist LaFree's research showed that "right-wing and Islamist extremists are significantly more likely than left-wing extremists to use violence to further political causes — both in the US and worldwide."

The attempted assassination of Trump has been widely regarded as the most dramatic act of political violence in the United States since John Hinckley, Jr., tried to kill US President Ronald Reagan in 1981. That attempted assassination brings back memories of the murders of US President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and his brother Robert Kennedy, who was shot during the 1968 election campaign.

Bipartisan condemnation essential

Political analyst Ian Bremmer said he is "deeply worried that [the assassination attempt] presages much more political violence and social instability to come."

He added that the United States needs a clear condemnation of political violence from across the political spectrum with politicians issuing bipartisan "calls for calm from their supporters going forward."

However, he also added that he was "deeply suspect that it is not going to happen."

This article was translated from German.