By Arie Perliger, UMass Lowell, the conversation
With the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024, the US entered a new violent episode in its increasingly polarized politics. Former President Trump, who is set to formally become the GOP nominee for president in the 2024 election, survived the attempted assassination when, according to initial reports, a bullet grazed his ear. But one attendee at the rally was killed, several spectators were injured, and the suspected shooter is also dead. The Conversation’s political editor Naomi Schalit spoke with Arie Perliger, a scholar at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, after the event. Perliger offered insight from his studies of political violence and assassinations. Given the deep political polarization in the US, Perliger said, “It’s no surprise that people end up being violent.”
Schalit: What was the first thing you thought when you heard the news?
Perliger: The first thing that came to mind was that we were essentially one inch away from a potential civil war. I think that if Donald Trump had indeed been mortally wounded today, the level of violence that we have seen so far would be nothing compared to what would have happened in the next few months. I think that would have unleashed a new level of anger, frustration, resentment and hostility that we have not seen in the United States for many, many years.
This assassination attempt, at least at this early stage, may confirm a strong sense among many Trump supporters and many on the far right that their legitimacy is being undermined, that they are being put on the defensive, and that efforts are being made to prevent them from participating in the political process and from Trump returning to the White House.
What we have just seen fits very well, for many people on the far right, into the narrative they have been building and spreading over the past few months.
Political assassination attempts aren’t just about killing someone. They have a bigger purpose, right?
In many ways, assassination attempts circumvent the long process of trying to degrade and defeat political opponents, when there is a sense that even a long political struggle is not going to be enough. Many perpetrators see assassinations as a tool with which they can achieve their political goals in a very quick, very effective way that does not require a lot of resources or a lot of organization. If we try to connect it to what we saw today, I think a lot of people see Trump as a unicorn, as a unique being, who in many ways has really swallowed up the entire conservative movement. So by removing him, there is a sense that that will or can solve the problem.
I think the conservative movement has changed dramatically since 2016, when Trump was first elected, and many of the features of Trumpism are actually quite popular now in various parts of the conservative movement. So even if Trump decides to retire at some point, I don’t think Trumpism — as a collection of populist ideas — is going to disappear from the GOP. But I can certainly understand why people who see it as a threat might think that removing Trump is going to solve all of the problems.
In a study on the causes and consequences of political assassination, you wrote that unless electoral processes can address the “most intense political grievances … electoral competition has the potential to fuel further violence, including the assassination of political figures.” Is that what you saw in this attempted assassination?
Democracy cannot work if the different parties, the different movements, are not willing to work together on certain issues. Democracy works when multiple groups are willing to reach some kind of consensus through negotiation, to work together, to cooperate.
What we’ve seen over the last 17 years, basically since 2008 and the rise of the Tea Party movement, is that there’s been increasing polarization in the United States. And the worst part of this polarization is that the American political system has become dysfunctional in the sense that we’re pushing out all the politicians and policymakers who are interested in working with the other side. That’s one thing. Secondly, people are delegitimizing leaders who are willing to work with the other side, and thus presenting them as individuals who have betrayed their values and their political party.
The third part is that people delegitimize their political rivals. They transform a political disagreement into a war where there is no room to work together to address the challenges facing the nation.
When you combine those three dynamics, you basically create a dysfunctional system where both sides are convinced that it’s a zero-sum game, that it’s the end of the country. It’s the end of democracy if the other side wins.
When both sides keep harping on about how losing the election will mean the end of the world, it’s no surprise that people will eventually be willing to take the law into their own hands and use violence.
Arie Perliger, Director of Security Studies and Professor of Criminology and Justice Studies, University of Massachusetts Lowell
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
