The attempted assassination of Donald Trump on Saturday has given Republicans an opportunity to pin the blame on Democrats, who have long campaigned on the warning that the former president is a threat to democracy. Although the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was a registered Republican and "definitely conservative," in the words of one former classmate, GOP officials rushed to blame President Joe Biden and the Democrats for a creating political environment that encourages violence.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., was quick to the point on Sunday, arguing that “when the message goes out constantly that the election of Donald Trump would be a threat to democracy and that the republic would end, it heats up the environment.”
Other Republicans, disregarding facts about the shooter, explicitly blamed Democrats for the attack. Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, accused Biden's campaign of using rhetoric that "led directly to Trump's attempted assassination." His colleague, Tim Scott, R-S.C., wrote that the assassination attempt was "aided and abetted by the radical Left and corporate media incessantly calling Trump a threat to democracy, fascists, or worse."
Crooks' own motive remains unknown, but Biden's calls for unity and appeal for Americans to wait until law enforcement can finish their investigation before drawing conclusions appears to have had little effect. Trump supporters, who seek to press their advantage as the party rallies around the former president, have in some cases dialed up their incendiary rhetoric.
“Joe Biden sent the orders,” claimed Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., citing Biden's figurative use of the word "bullseye" in recent remarks. “The Republican District Attorney in Butler County, PA, should immediately file charges against Joseph R. Biden for inciting an assassination,” he wrote in another post. Users on the pro-Trump forum Patriots.Win went a step further, calling for "borderline martial law to set the country right."
A Reuters analysis of more than 200 incidents between 2021 and 2023 found that ring-wingers are responsible for most politically-motivated acts of violence. Kurt Braddock, an assistant professor of public communication at American University who researches political violence, told the wire service that Biden's critique of Trump is a "false equivalence" to the violent rhetoric and threats deployed by right-wing Trump supporters against election workers, judges and other officials. And unlike measured statements by Biden and other Democratic officials that wished Trump well over the weekend, Trump and his supporters reacted with mocking glee to the attempted kidnapping of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in which her husband, Paul, sustained serious head injuries.
This time, Trump is reportedly using the moment to promote a message of unity, with the former president telling the Washington Examiner that he is planning to rewrite his speech at the Republican National Convention to reflect on his near-death experience.
"I think it would be very bad if I got up and started going wild about how horrible everybody else, and how corrupt and crooked, even if it's true," he said. "Had this not happened, we had a speech that was pretty well set that was extremely tough. Now, we have a speech that is more unifying."
The threat of election violence still remains, however. A senior member of the Proud Boys, the all-male far-right group that helped lead the pro-Trump attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, said that the group would show up in force at the Republican National Convention this week in Milwaukee.
After the shooting of Trump, “you’ll see us at more events,” the Proud Boys member told Reuters. “It’s going to be more active. It’s that simple.”
