The writer is the author of ‘Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right’
Last weekend’s assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump immediately launched calls for candidates and political leaders to reject violent rhetoric in their campaign and political discourse. Elected officials across the board responded with unifying language, disavowing violence and divisive messaging in an effort to lower the temperature and steer Americans away from the use of violence.
This is important. Any shift away from the kinds of sensationalist and violent language that recent campaigns have adopted is helpful. The words leaders use matter, both in normalising and legitimising political violence and in reducing partisan support for it.
But in the rush to point fingers at political elites and elected officials, it’s critical to remember that it’s just as important to change how we talk about violence in our own circles and communities.
There is no question that ordinary Americans have become increasingly willing to support or even participate in political violence. Some 20 per cent of adults in the US now believe that Americans may need to resort to violence to get the country “back on track”. And those numbers spike even higher when researchers ask Americans: “What if the other side committed violence first?”
These attitudes are all too visible in everyday life. In the wake of the shooting, some Trump supporters at the rally immediately turned on members of the media: blaming journalists for the attack and warning “You’re next! Your time is coming!” Meanwhile, some social media posts from Americans on the left celebrated the attack or expressed regret that the assassination attempt hadn’t been successful.
This was not just the extreme fringes lashing out. I heard similar remarks among my own friends and acquaintances, who posted comments such as “you reap what you sow” or otherwise suggested that the former president has stoked the flames so much that he deserved to be attacked.
This type of reaction is dangerous, especially because history shows that violence begets violence — and in ways that can create tremendous risk in the wake of an attack like that of last Saturday. After violent events such as the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting in 2018, approval of violence spiked among Americans, although those spikes are thankfully shortlived.
This is why it is just as important to reject approving talk of violence in conversations at the dinner table as it is on the campaign trail. This shooting is a reckoning both for political leaders and for ordinary Americans. It’s a moment in which everyone should think about the role they play in escalating the potential for violence. And in the end, all of us need to remember that we don’t just have a role to play in reducing that potential — we have an obligation to do so.
The good news is that it’s not that hard to turn down the temperature. The world of violence prevention provides plentiful expert evidence about how to do it effectively. This can take place in places already beset by conflict, as organisations such as Search for Common Ground have been demonstrating for decades. These efforts bring ordinary people together across dividing lines in co-operative work that builds trust, reduces conflict and results in healthy, safe communities. Those same strategies are already proving effective in the US context.
The violence can also be prevented before it happens. Researchers have found that it is relatively easy to dissuade individuals from pathways that lead to violence — through preventive interventions such as prebunking. This equips people with tools to be more sceptical of manipulative content, conspiracy theories and propaganda in ways that appear to impact their behaviour and their choices.
Make no mistake: violent, apocalyptic and hateful rhetoric from political leaders is abhorrent. We absolutely need to hold elected officials, election candidates and other leaders accountable for their words and the ways they stoke the flames of polarising, us vs them thinking, turning their political opponents into an evil or existential threat. But we also need to check the increasing willingness of ordinary Americans to see violence as an acceptable strategy to achieve political goals.
At its root, the attempted assassination of former president Trump is a reminder to hold on to our basic humanity. No one deserves to be shot, no matter what political views they hold. Believing anything less than that is an invitation to disaster: for this election, for democracy, and for our collective moral compass.