New information is still emerging about the shooting at former President Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday. However, even though the full picture is not yet available, there are ways to think about the political and social moment we are living in and how it may have contributed to the violence;
The shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, about a 75-minute drive from Butler where the rally was taking place. He was a registered Republican (though he also made a $15 donation to a progressive group), carried out the shooting with an AR-15-style rifle bought by his father, and had at least two explosive devices with him. He was killed by a Secret Service agent after killing Corey Comperatore, 50, and injuring Trump, as well as two others.
It is quite possible that the shooting may not be considered “political” at all – we simply do not know enough about the motive. But it is fair to say that the assassination attempt has raised the political temperature in an already volatile country. Since Trump’s election in 2016, the US has seen protests in Charlottesville, the Tree of Life shooting in 2018, the Buffalo shooting in 2022, and the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, among other events; now, the specter of political violence also hangs over our future.
To better understand the moment of anxiety and destabilization we are living in, Vox spoke with four experts to help explain how political polarization, state violence, online radicalization, and feelings of rights deprivation can drive political violence;
Based on our conversations, here are five ways we should think about political violence in this historical moment – why it erupts and why violent periods often worsen before they get better.
The Role of Extreme Polarization in Political Violence
Violence of this nature is unpredictable; that is part of what makes it terrifying. Mass shootings, terrorist attacks, and political violence, like Saturday’s shooting, are deeply destabilizing, especially in a deeply violent time with multiple ongoing wars and civil conflicts. But we know there are social, political, and interpersonal factors that contribute to public and politically motivated violence.
Lilliana Mason, associate professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University: Political violence is more likely to arise when a society is politically divided along identity-based lines. When parties are on opposite sides of racial, ethnic, or religious divisions (as our parties are in the US), it becomes easier for people to view their political opponents as enemies.
In the US, we are also geographically divided, so supporters have little contact with ordinary people from the other party. This creates what we call “moral disengagement,” consisting of attitudes of vilification and dehumanization towards our political opponents. These attitudes allow us to harm our fellow citizens without feeling like bad people.
Erik Nisbet, professor of policy analysis and communication at Northwestern University: We are incredibly tribal, and our political identities have become almost mega identities. They overlap with all other social or cultural identities we have. For some people, this is combined with perceptions and rhetoric of dehumanizing the other side: “The other side is immoral – and an existential threat to our group, to our identity…”
And if the other side is immoral, not human, and a threat, then violence becomes almost morally justified. “I can still be a good person and engage in violence.” And that’s how many of those around January 6, for example, saw themselves: They were good people. They were correcting a mistake. And violence was justified in that case.
Political Violence: A Part of American History
Violence has always been part of our politics. As Today, Explained host Sean Rameswaram recently said: “Joe Biden spoke three times in about 24 hours about this attempted assassination of his opponent… The first time, he said, ‘That’s not us’. The second time, he said, ‘That’s not us’. The third time, he said, ‘That’s not us’. But I think history students should remember that this is sort of ‘us’.”
Nisbet: Unfortunately, it is us, but there is something different in this historical moment. What is different in the last 10 years is that political violence is no longer just political violence – it is partisan violence. It is violence focused and centered on our political identities as Democrats and Republicans.
Previously, political violence was actually quite symmetrical between left and right; it focused on broader ideologies. Focused perhaps on isolated issues. Now, political violence, the trends of recent years, are more concentrated on “I am a Democrat and therefore support violence against Republicans” or vice versa. And, at least in terms of the number of violent acts monitored by the FBI and domestic terrorism databases, in recent years the trend has been more right-leaning than left-leaning.
The Roots of Extremism in Today’s Violence
Publicly motivated political violence does not happen in a vacuum; people do not simply plan an assassination attempt or a bombing for no reason. Political radicalization, personal grievances, and psychological illnesses interact with social forces like political polarization – as well as the simple fact of deadly weapons being widely available – to make political violence more likely.
Kurt Braddock, assistant professor of public communication at American University: We are finding that extremists are often motivated by how they engage with online content, whether it be a social network or the content they are absorbing. This never occurs in a black box and never occurs in isolation.
There is always some way in which the perpetrator perceives that their action is part of a larger movement they have become aware of and are motivated by, in the context of their interactions, often with people online.
There is some social unrest when assassination attempts occur. This often has to do with the perceptions that shooters have of that social unrest. They often feel as if they have been personally victimized or perceive that there was a threat from the target against them or their own safety, and that’s why I think there is a connection between state repression and actual violence against politicians.
Violence Arising from a Perception of Rights Loss
The loss of privileges and rights – whether real or perceived – is another motivator of political violence. This is a fairly easy pattern to recognize throughout the 20th and 21st centuries in American history;
State-perpetrated violence against citizens also plays a role in acts of violence against the State or its representatives. When the State uses its disproportionate capacity for violence against people – whether through repressive legislation or police brutality – violence against the State becomes a more logical response.
Braddock: There is a significant amount of literature showing that one of the factors that increase violence in general – not just terrorism, but also insurgencies, riots, and the like – is state repression and the idea that people are losing their rights, that people perceive they have been victimized in some way. This has been in the literature for quite some time.
There is a radicalization theory that argues that when one “side” starts becoming more radical, the other side feels the need to engage in defense – they themselves radicalize in defense.
Nathan Kalmoe, executive director of the Center for Communication and Civil Renewal at the University of Wisconsin-Madison: Many political scientists define the State as an entity that holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of force in its territory. In other words, the State can practice violence, and no other person or group can practice it against the State or against each other without punishment. This places the threat of State violence against its citizens at the center of our understanding of government, even for good governments.
State violence and political violence by citizens often support each other. For example, the violent response of white supremacists to the Civil Rights Movement often combined Klan violence with police violence against activists and ordinary citizens. Sometimes they coordinated or even worked together, while at other times they simply worked towards the same overall goals of maintaining white supremacy;
Research by Professor Christian Davenport of the University of Michigan and his colleagues shows that people tend to view the appropriateness of State violence and citizen violence as proportional to each other, similar to proportional/disproportional violence in wars. Therefore, the fact that police act with disproportionate violence against protesters makes people more willing to endorse proportional violence against the police in response;
Violence Begets Violence
The US political landscape is already highly polarized, and an apparent assassination attempt on a presidential candidate’s life will not change that. In fact, there are some reasons to be concerned about the possibility of more violence of this nature looming in the coming months.
Nisbet: One of the factors driving political violence is what we call meta-perceptions. If a Democrat believes Republicans are violent, they are more likely to engage in violence themselves and vice versa. It’s like we say: “If they bring a knife, we bring a gun.” So, acts of political violence actually generate violence because it makes each group more willing to engage in violence as a kind of self-protection function. And this becomes a sort of self-reinforcing spiral.
Kalmoe: I am very concerned about the potential for subsequent political violence. What we learn about the motives may have a significant impact on this. The vast majority of Americans oppose political violence, but that changes substantially if the other side is seen acting violently first. The most inflammatory situation would be that of an ideologically motivated killer from the political left, though it is helpful that Democratic leaders have uniformly denounced violence.
Braddock: I am glad to see that people from both sides, with or without political motivation, are speaking out against political violence. And I hope this is a trend that continues. I wouldn’t say I am confident, but I hope it happens. I am concerned, however, that we will see more violence as a result of this.
Peter Balonon-Rosen and Sean Rameswaram contributed reporting to this article.
