WASHINGTON: Hours after the assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump, many of his supporters have begun shifting the blame to Democrats, seeking to turn the tables on who has stoked the heated political rhetoric in the US as instances of political violence reach historic highs.
From establishment Republicans to far-right conspiracy theorists, a consistent message has emerged: President Joe Biden and other Democratic leaders laid the groundwork for Saturday’s shootings by portraying Trump as an autocrat who poses a grave threat to democracy.
A Reuters analysis of more than 200 incidents of politically motivated violence between 2021 and 2023, however, painted a different picture: In those years, deadly political violence came more often from the American right than the left.
The United States is in the grip of the longest wave of political violence in a decade of upheaval that began in the late 1960s, according to a Reuters report last year. The violence comes from across the ideological spectrum, including mass attacks on property during left-wing political protests. But the attacks on people — from beatings to murders — have been carried out primarily by suspects acting in the service of right-wing political beliefs and ideologies.
Almost immediately after Saturday’s attack, right-wing websites were filled with claims that left-wing rhetoric motivated Trump’s attacker. Many commentators blamed the shooting on the Biden White House or advanced baseless conspiracy theories, including that a shadowy “deep state” cabal within the government orchestrated it.
“Don’t think this is the last attempt to kill Trump. The deep state really has no choice now,” said one user on the pro-Trump site Patriots.Win. “It’s going to take borderline martial law to get the country back on track,” wrote another user. One user called for a purge of the federal government. “It’s either us or them.”
Republican Trump supporters specifically highlighted a comment Biden made on July 8 as the president discussed his poor debate performance at a meeting with donors.
“I have one job to do: beat Donald Trump,” Biden said, according to a transcript of the call that Biden’s campaign released to reporters. “We’re done talking about the debate. It’s time to put Trump in the bullseye. He’s gotten away with doing nothing for the last 10 days except driving around in his golf cart.”
Some Republican lawmakers used the “bullseye” comment as an example of how Biden has used violent imagery to describe the November presidential election and criticized Biden and other Democrats for portraying the former president as a threat to democracy and the nation.
“For weeks, Democratic leaders have been stoking a ridiculous hysteria that Donald Trump’s re-election would mean the end of democracy in America,” U.S. Rep. Steve Scalize, a Louisiana Republican, wrote on X. “We have clearly seen far-left lunatics act on violent rhetoric in the past. This inflammatory rhetoric must stop.”
Scalize himself was a victim of violence seven years ago, wounded by a left-wing gunman who opened fire during a practice of the congressional Republican baseball team.
Other Republican politicians added their contributions.
“Joe Biden gave the order,” U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, a Georgia Republican, wrote on X on Saturday. There is no evidence for this claim. “The Republican district attorney for Butler County, Pennsylvania, should immediately file charges against Joseph R. Biden for incitement to assassinate.”
“False equivalence”
Kurt Braddock, an assistant professor of public communication at American University and a researcher on political violence, said Biden’s criticism of Trump as a threat to the nation is not the same as the violent language deployed by Trump’s right-wing supporters. “It’s a bit of a false equivalency,” Braddock said.
Trump supporters have stepped up threats and harassing communications targeting election workers, judges and other officials.
After Trump lost the 2020 election, Reuters documented hundreds of threats against local election officials by Trump supporters angry at his false claims that the election was rigged. A Reuters investigation published in May found that violent threats against judges overseeing Trump’s various criminal and civil trials increased after the former president criticized those judges in speeches or social media posts.
Before the shooting, Donald Trump had not ruled out the possibility of political violence if he lost the November election. “If we don’t win, you know, it depends,” he said when asked by TIME magazine in April whether he expected violence after the 2024 election. He has also refused to accept the results of the upcoming election unconditionally and warned of a “bloodbath” if he loses.
A Reuters analysis of dozens of Trump’s campaign speeches — including those from 2020 and 2024 — found that violence was a recurring theme. He urged protesters to “take back our country,” repeatedly praised the Jan. 6 Capitol rioters and compared himself to notorious mobster Al Capone. As president, he encouraged police to be brutal with people they arrested and threatened to use the U.S. military to quell protests.
Biden, who has repeatedly condemned political violence, issued a new condemnation immediately after the attack on Trump.
“There is no place in America for this kind of violence, or any violence for that matter. An attempted assassination is contrary to everything we stand for … as a nation — everything,” Biden said in a televised address. “We will debate and we will disagree. That will not change. But we will not lose sight of who we are as Americans.”
At first, Trump struck a defiant tone. Moments after the shooting at his Pennsylvania rally, he raised his fist at the crowd and shouted, “Fight! Fight!” On Sunday, however, he called for national unity.
“Right now, it is more important than ever that we stand together,” Trump wrote in a message posted on his social network Truth Social.
That message was reinforced by the campaign memo to staff, calling for calm. “We fervently hope that this horrific act will bring our team, and indeed the nation, together in unity, and we must renew our commitment to the security and peace of our country,” the internal campaign memo, seen by Reuters, read.
Some pro-Trump commentators have predicted more violence in the future. “They will stop at nothing if America doesn’t stand up to them,” said one commenter on Rumble, a video-sharing site that attracts right-wing users, referring to Democrats. “Violence is going to happen. It’s civil war.”
A prominent member of the Proud Boys, the all-male violent extremist group that led the pro-Trump assault on Congress on January 6, 2021, said the group would be at the Republican National Convention, which begins Monday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After Trump’s shooting, “you’ll see us at more events,” the Proud Boy told Reuters. “We’ll be more active. It’s that simple.”
Megan McBride, an expert on domestic violent extremism, believes that U.S. leaders have a brief window of time to quell partisan hatred before a cycle of retaliation kicks in. Research shows that support for political violence increases when people believe the other side supports it, said McBride, a senior fellow at the CNA’s Institute for Public Research, a nonprofit that studies security issues.
“There is nothing inevitable about the shift from the threat of violence to actual violence,” she said. “This is a fantastic opportunity for the country to turn the temperature down a little bit.”
The shooter’s political and other motivations remain unclear. The suspect, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was killed at the scene by Secret Service agents. Crooks was a registered Republican who would have been eligible to vote for the first time in the Nov. 5 presidential election. His father, Matthew Crooks, 53, told CNN he was trying to understand what happened and would wait to talk about his son until he spoke to law enforcement.
Republican Rep. Mike Kelly, who represents the district where the shooting occurred, was there with his wife and grandchildren and was standing right behind Trump when he was shot. Kelly said he was “in a state of bewilderment about what has happened to the United States of America.”
“I wish people would tone it down,” he said. “Stop trying to find someone, to blame someone. The fault lies somewhere in the psyche of America.”
(With AP)
