The United States has a political violence problem.
The arrest Sunday of Ryan Wesley Routh, who was allegedly trying to assassinate former President Donald Trump on a golf course, was just the latest example of this, even as it was also a disturbing indication of how violence is being manifested toward the nation’s political system. This was the second such attempt against the former president, an extraordinary occurrence in any election year.
While we join our voice with the many who express relief that this attempt failed, we urge Americans not to turn a blind eye toward this disturbing trend. The people’s right to choose their leaders is under assault.
This is not a new thing.
Certainly, political violence was all too familiar to Americans in the 1960s, but it had seemingly retreated for many years. Recent examples of it, however, are jarring.
In 2017, gunfire erupted during a practice Republican lawmakers were holding in advance of a congressional baseball game. Several people were wounded, including Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., who was critically injured. The assailant expressed hatred toward Republicans.
In 2022, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, was brutally attacked at his home in San Francisco. His assailant, who had been looking for the former speaker, told the court of conspiracy theories he believed.
Earlier this month, CBS News reported on an increase in threats against election clerks nationwide in the run-up to November’s election. Officials from seven battleground states had met to compare notes and to share ways to prepare in light of the threats. At a legislative hearing earlier this year, Utah’s Director of Elections Ryan Cowley said 20 of the state’s 29 county clerks have left office since 2020. Many of these left due to “the tense political environment.”
One top official at Georgia’s office of secretary of state said, “The biggest thing I worry about is the possibility of violence by people who lose.”
Michigan’s secretary of state said, “We’re daily receiving threats, whether it’s through voicemails, emails, social media or in person.”
The rhetoric of violence is not harmless. It can push people on society’s fringes to act out in destructive ways.
As Cynthia Miller-Idriss, director of research at American University’s Polarization and Extremism Research Innovation Lab, told NPR recently, polarizing rhetoric that paints political opponents as existential threats is “a problem at the elite level, and it’s a problem among ordinary conversations as well.
“You have a lone actor who is not only motivated by elites who mess up, but also by ordinary citizens who give up and who lean into the idea that violence is a solution to any kind of political ideas or problems.”
Even those who make offhand or joking remarks about violence add to this problem. But too many people do not seem to be joking.
A PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll released earlier this year found that about 20% of American adults believe violence may be necessary in order to get the nation back on track. While that remains decidedly a minority opinion, it cannot be allowed to grow without it jeopardizing the very idea of democracy.
In response to that poll, David Avella, chairman of GOPAC, a Republican state and local political training organization, told PBS, “Violence isn’t the way to get our country back on track. ... We’re still a country that believes in law and order, and everybody still has to play by the rules.”
As with the earlier attempt on Trump’s life this year, during which he sustained a wound to an ear, questions abound as to how the alleged assailant gained access to a post so close to the former president, and how he knew Trump would be there.
Charging documents against Routh suggest that, according to cellphone data, he may have been hiding in bushes near the course for 12 hours, waiting for an opportunity.
It may be impossible to guard against all threats, particularly during a campaign season where candidates want interaction with the public.
What Americans can control, however, is their rhetoric about political candidates, philosophies and violence. Whether it’s against a county clerk or a presidential hopeful, it isn’t funny. It’s deadly serious.