BUFFALO, NY – Long before an alleged murderer shot and injured Former president donald trumpthe fuse of political violence was burning across America.
Members of Congress were shot. Employees of a Virginia legislature were attacked with a baseball bat. In Louisville, a bullet grazed the mayor’s sweater after someone broke into his campaign office. Someone put a tracking device in the Reno mayor’s car. South Carolina authorities have received death threats over a solar panel factory. And just outside Buffalo, a man threw a fake bomb through the window of a county clerk candidate’s home while her family slept — with a message saying, “If you don’t drop out of this race, the next bomb will be real. ”
“I’ve had people come up to me and say, ‘I thought about running for my city office and I could never imagine my family going through what you went through, so I chose not to,’” said Melissa Hartman, who was targeted in the episode. pipe bomb and ran for county clerk after serving as county supervisor in Eden.
O attempt on Trump’s life it was the most recently and the most stunning example of political violence and harassment occurring regularly across America, shaking the foundations of democracy and causing great concern that the atmosphere will worsen as Election day get closer. Trump and President Joe Biden called for unity after the shooting, with the president telling the nation“We cannot allow violence to be normalized.”
Intense partisanship, punctuated by violence, has long been a part of American politics. In 1798, congressmen from opposing parties fought in the US House, hitting each other with a cane and fireplace tongs. Four presidents have been killed by assassins, and other presidents and candidates have been injured or targeted. However, the attack on Trump evoked memories of more recent incidents.
Democratic US Representative Gabby Giffords was injured in a 2011 shooting outside a supermarket in Arizona. Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, now House majority leader, was shot in 2017 while practicing for a charity baseball game. Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan was targeted a foiled kidnapping plot discovered in 2020.
Even after the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol shocked the world, political violence continued.
A man with a hammer beaten the husband of then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, at her San Francisco home in 2022. Last year, a man with a history of mental illness went to the Fairfax, Virginia, district office of Democratic U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly , looking to kill him with a baseball bat. Connolly wasn’t there, so the man attacked two employees.
And there are dozens of stories from much lesser-known political officials like Hartman.
She lost the race for city clerk and has not sought elected office since her town of 7,700 is home to the only metal kazoo factory in North America. The man who threw the fake bomb pleaded guilty. Hartman said she was paid by a neighbor to do this, and she remains nervous two years later when approached in public.
In York County, South Carolina, a growing suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina, County Council Chairwoman Christi Cox said that after the Trump attack, she felt compelled to speak out about a letter that recently received. She sent her three children to get the mail and read it while they were nearby — a threat to kill her unless she stopped a solar panel manufacturer from building a $150 million factory that received board-approved incentives. . Cox is a Republican; an additional letter threatening the board’s only Democrat arrived at the county offices.
“Our country is in a very dangerous and dark place right now, and I feel like some of that is spilling over into our community,” she said at Monday night’s council meeting. “The level of anger, hatred, lies, accusations, fear-mongering – it’s rampant.”
In Reno, Nevada, a far-right movement is targeting local politicians. Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve doesn’t know if anyone in that movement put the tracking device on her vehicle and tries to avoid going to public places alone.
“I think people really forget that we are human beings,” she said.
In Louisville, Kentucky, in 2022, a man broke into Mayor Craig Greenberg’s campaign headquarters, firing shots. A bullet hit his sweater. The employees emerged unharmed.
“Absolutely nothing good came of Saturday’s heinous act,” Greenberg said Monday. “But let’s hope it’s finally the wake-up call.”
Michigan State Senator Jeremy Moss called the assassination attempt a “reset” moment. Moss, who is Jewish and gay, has faced personal threats over the years, including one from a man accused of using social media to threaten lives of Jewish employees of the state of Michigan.
“I hope this is a moment when all of us, on all sides of the political spectrum, can say that we were all saved by that missing bullet from President Trump,” Moss said.
The attack came a day after governors, gathered at a National Governors Association meeting in Salt Lake City, pledged to collaborate on public service announcements and other campaigns to show voters they can get along with political rivals.
“We can disagree without hating each other,” said the outgoing president, Republican Spencer Cox of Utah.
The cooling political climate will require a shift in messaging at the top and a willingness among ordinary voters to reach out to those who disagree with them, said Austin Doctor of the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology and Education Center.
“It takes a lot of work and a consistent commitment to the values of democracy,” said Doctor. “The question we have to keep asking is: how can we get out of this potential spiral?”
In Oklahoma, Republican Party pollster and consultant Pat McFerron said the party’s closed primaries in safe districts encourage candidates to use extreme rhetoric. It would be watered down, he argued, into a single open primary.
“Most of the candidates I know, at their core, are people who want to make a difference and prefer an environment that wants consensus,” McFerron said. “If you want to be successful, you have to play the game that is in front of you.”
Some Republicans – including the vice presidential candidate JD Vance — quickly blamed Biden and other Democrats for portraying Trump as a threat to democracy. On Facebook, the Republican lieutenant governor of Alabama, Will Ainsworth, blamed “the radical left” and said that their agenda attacks Christianity and is “evil incarnate”.
Social media has helped fuel threats. In a 2021 survey of 112 public employees, the National League of Cities found that the overwhelming majority – about 4 in 5 – experienced harassment, threats or violence. Most said this happened through social media; more than half said this also occurred at public meetings.
Threats of violence were also amplified starting in 2020 with the coronavirus pandemic, when public health authorities imposed restrictions. Ohio’s state health director resigned after armed protesters came to her home; the Orange County, California, health officer has resigned after weeks of criticism and threats for requiring face coverings in public.
And Trump’s false narrative that the 2020 election was stolen has sparked threats against local election officials, leaving some unhappy or anxious enough to get out. Many are closely following the upcoming elections.
“It’s hard to imagine that there isn’t an election jurisdiction in the country that isn’t now on high alert for the potential for political violence in the 2024 elections,” said David Levine, a former local election official in Idaho.
____ Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas; Mulvihill of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and Collins of Columbia, South Carolina. Associated Press writers Christina Almeida Cassidy in Atlanta; Matthew Barakat in Springfield, Virginia; Bill Barrow in Milwaukee; Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan; Dylan Lovan in Louisville, Kentucky; Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City; and Gabe Stern in Carson City, Nevada contributed.
