The attempted assassination of Donald Trump, which injured the former president at a rally for his re-election campaign and killed a spectator, marks a shocking and frightening moment. Political violence is neither a new development nor an aberration for the US. Though thankfully Mr Trump survived, four American presidents have been murdered, along with candidates and holders of lower offices. Many more have faced serious threats to their lives.
Sometimes such attempts are the work of an individual, such as John Hinckley Jr, who shot and injured Ronald Reagan while mentally ill, or of a small group bent on a particular aim. Sometimes, as with Abraham Lincoln’s murder, they speak to the roiling currents within American politics.
Much remains unknown about the gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper. Records show he was a registered Republican, but had given a small sum to a progressive action committee in 2021. Yet at a time of such rancour and division, many on both left and right already see Saturday’s shooting as part of a wider tide of violence and political hatred. The term “civil war” began trending on social media after the shooting.
Mr Trump urged people to “stand united, and show our true character as Americans … not allowing evil to win”. His political opponents were also swift in denouncing this appalling act of violence, with Joe Biden describing the attack as “sick”.
Many places around the world are seeing growing political violence and tolerance of such acts. A small but significant and persistent minority support violence either for or against Mr Trump, research has found. The director of the centre that carried out that research, the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, has called the US a “tinderbox”. Many more Americans have weapons, thanks to surging gun sales in recent years; disinformation is rampant; and the internet also makes it easier for people with ill intent to organise.
Conspiracy theories are already swirling, on both left and right. The image of a bloodied Mr Trump, fist raised in defiance, in front of the stars and stripes will surely harden the conviction of supporters that he is a martyr, persecuted politically, legally and now physically for trying to make America great again. Steve Scalise, the Republican House majority leader – himself seriously wounded in 2017 by an anti-Republican gunman with a history of aggression and violence – was swift to accuse Democrats of “incendiary rhetoric” that was “fuelling ludicrous hysteria that Donald Trump winning re-election would be the end of democracy in America”.
True incitement cannot be tolerated. Violence must be condemned – as Mr Trump himself failed to do when he joked about the brutal attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul and said it was “common sense” that rioters who stormed the Capitol chanting for the hanging of his vice-president, Mike Pence, were angry.
There must also be care that extreme acts by a minority are not used to silence legitimate criticism. There is very good reason to believe that Mr Trump is a threat to American democracy; there is no justification whatsoever to the belief that he should be stopped through violence. Politicians of all stripes must be more careful than ever in their choice of language. It is up to the American public too to make this grim moment mark a turning point for the better, not a slide into something still worse.
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