This summer has seen two assassination attempts against former president Donald Trump. In the wake of the second attempt on September 15th, Peter Finn looks at the broader context of political violence in the US including both successful and unsuccessful presidential assassination attempts in past decades. Concerningly, recent surveys have found that millions of Americans could potentially support extreme acts of political violence.
- This article is part of ‘The 2024 Elections’ series curated by Peter Finn (Kingston University). Ahead of the 2024 election, this series is exploring US elections at the state and national level. If you are interested in contributing to the series, contact Peter Finn (p.finn@kingston.ac.uk).
On Sunday, September 15th 2024, Ryan Wesley Routh was apprehended by Secret Service members near where former, and potentially future, President Donald Trump was playing golf at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida. This was the second assassination attempt on the Republican Party nominee for president during this election cycle. The first was just over two months ago, when Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was shot dead at the scene, fired shots at Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
For both Crooks and Routh, clear motivations and intentions are missing. Crooks was registered as a Republican in 2021, had searched for images of Trump and President Biden on his phone, and had also donated to ActBlue, which describes itself as ‘Powering Democratic candidates & progressive causes across the country’.
Meanwhile, Routh has supported both Republicans and Democrats at various points and registered as unaffiliated in 2012 in North Carolina. He has also shown an interest in the conflict in Ukraine; even travelling to Kiev in early 2022 to unsuccessfully try and take part in the conflict.
The US’ recent history of political violence
The two assassination attempts against Trump came less than four years after the January 6 2021 attempts to overturn the 2020 US presidential election by supporters of Trump, egged on by the former president’s rhetoric and a sustained, but flawed and failed, legal campaign to overturn the election results in the courts. Just over a year and a half later, on 28 October 2022, the husband of the then Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, Paul Pelosi, was attacked with a hammer at the couple’s home. This attack was carried out by David DePape as part of a claimed campaign against corrupt government.
Moreover, just seven years ago, in June 2017, four were shot at practice for the annual congressional baseball game by Republicans. These included the then Republican Whip in the House of Representatives Steve Scalise. James Hodgkinson, inspired by a hatred of the Republican Party, fired dozens of rounds at those at the practice. Moreover, political violence in the US aimed at those beyond the public eye is also concerningly common.
Reagan and JFK
Looking further back, in March 1981 John Hinckley, Jr shot President Ronald Reagan as he left the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C. In 1982 Hinckley was found ‘not guilty by reason of mental illness and was committed to St. Elizabeth’s hospital in Washington, D.C.’. Hinckley, who had been attempting to gain the attention of the actress Jodie Foster with his assassination attempt, was released in 2016 (with some restrictions remaining until 2022).
“DSC09312” (CC BY 2.0) by Tyler Merbler
Almost two decades prior to the shooting of Reagan was, perhaps, the most written about act of political violence in US history: the shooting of President John F. Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas on November 22 1963. The subject of an endless stream of conjecture and conspiracy theories, the assassination of JFK has become a cultural staple, appearing regularly in narratives across literature, film, and television. Just two days later ‘Oswald was scheduled to be transferred from police headquarters to the county jail.’ But, instead ‘[v]iewers across America watching the live television coverage suddenly saw a man aim a pistol and fire at point blank range. The assailant was identified as Jack Ruby, a local nightclub owner. Oswald died two hours later at Parkland Hospital.’ As Time Magazine reported following the publishing of the Warren Commission report into the assassination, a full ‘explanation of Oswald’s motive for killing President Kennedy was buried with him’.
Current attitudes to political violence in America
An important question that arises from the successful and unsuccessful assassination attempts I’ve mentioned is how large the acceptance of political violence is among the general US populace? Particularly concerningly, an annual survey carried out by the Public Religion Research Institute published in October 2023 found that almost a quarter (23 percent) agreed with the statement that ‘because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country’, with 15 percent of people having agreed with the same statement in 2021. Among those who think Donald Trump had the 2020 election stolen from him, support was even higher, with 46 percent support among this group.
Another recent study, from the Polarization Research Lab, which asks participants about their support for certain political acts, found that one third of Republicans and Democrats supported people protesting without a permit, while support for the use of a deadly weapon and murder against partisan opponents was between 2.42 percent and 1.49 percent. Support for acts such as vandalism was below 10 percent, assault below four percent, and arson below three percent.
Broader trends and diverse and muddied intentions
US Election Day, perhaps the world’s most carnival-like manifestation of the ideals of democracy (even if these ideals are not always reflected in reality), is less than two months away. Perhaps the most disturbing facet of the assassination attempts against Trump beyond the acts themselves is that, rather than being outliers, they fit into a broader trend of political violence that goes back decades.
From the most recent attempt on Trump’s life, to the presidential assassinations and assassination attempts of the 1960s and 1980s, all these events are distinct in and of themselves, with the specific context important for fully understanding how and why each unfolded and the motivations of those involved. Though, as we have seen, such motivations can differ, and in many cases are hard to fully understand or pinpoint.
However, when viewed collectively, these events illustrate the value of understanding them as parts of broader societal trends. Even if the number of those who feel comfortable with political violence is a relatively small percentage of Americans, this translates to potentially millions of Americans. Political violence is likely to remain a feature of US politics moving forward.
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- Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of USAPP – American Politics and Policy, nor the London School of Economics.
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