BUFFALO, NY — Long before a potential murderer shot and wounded former president Donald Trumpthe fuse of political violence burned across America.
Members of Congress have been shot. Staffers of a Virginia legislator were attacked with a baseball bat. In Louisville, a bullet grazed the mayor’s sweater after someone stormed his campaign office. Someone did a tracking device on the Reno mayor’s car. South Carolina officials received death threats over a solar panel factory. And outside Buffalo, a man threw a fake bomb through the window of a county clerk candidate’s home while her family slept — with a message that read, “If you don’t get out of this race, the next bomb will be real.”
“I’ve had people come up to me and say, ‘I thought about running for my city council, but I can’t imagine my family going through what you went through, so I chose not to,’” said Melissa Hartman, a target in the pipe bomb scandal who ran for clerk after serving as a city supervisor in Eden.
The attempted assassination of Trump used to be the last and the most stunning example of political violence and intimidation that occurs regularly in America, shaking the foundations of democracy and raising serious concerns that the atmosphere will deteriorate as Election Day approaching. Trump and President Joe Biden both called for unity after the shooting, with the president who tells the nation“We cannot allow violence to become normalized.”
Intense partisanship, punctuated by violence, has long been a feature of American politics. In 1798, members of Congress from opposing parties fought in the US House of Representatives, beating each other with a stick and tongs in front of fireplaces. Four presidents have been killed by assassins, while other presidents and candidates have been injured or targeted. Still, the attack on Trump brought back memories of more recent incidents.
Democratic U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords was injured in a 2011 shooting outside an Arizona supermarket. Republican U.S. Representative Steve Scalisenow House Speaker, was shot in 2017 during a charity baseball game practice. Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan was the target of a foiled kidnapping operation discovered in 2020.
Even after the January 6, 2021 uprising In the US Capitol, the world was shocked, the political violence continued.
A man with a hammer hit the man by then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, at their San Francisco home in 2022. Last year, a man with a history of mental illness went to Democratic U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly’s district office in Fairfax, Virginia, to kill him with a baseball bat. Connolly wasn’t there, so the man two staff members attacked.
And there are dozens of stories of much lesser-known political officials like Hartman.
She lost her race for clerk and has not run for office in her town of 7,700, home to the only metal kazoo factory in North America. The man who threw the dummy pipe bomb pleaded guilty. Hartman said he was paid by a neighbor to do it, and two years later she is still wary of being challenged in public.
In York County, South Carolina, a booming suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina, County Council President Christi Cox said she felt compelled in the wake of the Trump assassination attempt to talk about a letter she had recently received. She had sent her three children to get and read the mail while they were in the area — a threat to kill her if she didn’t stop a solar panel manufacturer from building a $150 million factory that the council had approved with incentives. Cox is a Republican; an additional letter threatening the council’s lone Democrat was sent to county offices.
“Our country is in a very dangerous and dark place right now, and I feel like some of that is spilling over into our community,” she said during Monday night’s council meeting. “The level of anger, the hatred, the lies, the accusations, the fear-mongering — it’s widespread.”
In Reno, Nevada, a far-right movement has targeted local politicians. Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve doesn’t know if anyone in the movement has placed the tracking device on her vehicle, and she’s trying to avoid going to public places alone.
“I think people really forget that we’re human,” she said.
In Louisville, Kentucky, in 2022, a man stormed into Mayor Craig Greenberg’s campaign headquarters and fired shots. One bullet grazed his sweater. Staffers were unharmed.
“Absolutely nothing good has come out of Saturday’s horrific act,” Greenberg said Monday. “But let’s hope it’s finally the wake-up call.”
Michigan State Senator Jeremy Moss called the assassination attempt a moment to “reset.” Moss, who is Jewish and gay, has faced personal threats over the years, including one from a man accused of using social media to threaten life of Jewish officials of the state of Michigan.
“I hope this is a moment where all of us, on all sides of the political spectrum, can say we were all saved by that bullet that missed President Trump,” Moss said.
The attack came a day after governors at a meeting of the National Governors Association in Salt Lake City pledged to work together on public service announcements and other campaigns to show voters they can deal with political rivals.
“We can disagree without hating each other,” said outgoing Republican Chairman Spencer Cox of Utah.
Calming the political climate will require both a change in messaging at the top and a willingness among ordinary voters to distance themselves more from those who disagree with them, said Austin Doctor of the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center.
“It takes a lot of work and consistent commitment to the values of democracy,” Doctor said. “The question we have to keep asking ourselves is: How do we get out of this potential spiral?”
In Oklahoma, Pat McFerron, a pollster and GOP consultant, said closed party primaries in safe districts encourage candidates to use extreme rhetoric. He argued that would be toned down in a single open primary.
“Most of the candidates I know are people at heart who want to make a difference and who prefer an environment that wants consensus,” McFerron said. “If you want to be successful, you have to play the game that’s in front of you.”
Some Republicans, including the vice presidential candidate JD Vance — quickly blamed Biden and his fellow Democrats for portraying Trump as a threat to democracy. On Facebook, Alabama GOP Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth blamed “the radical left,” saying their agenda attacks Christianity and is “evil personified.”
Social media has helped fuel threats. In a 2021 survey of 112 government officials, the National League of Cities found that the vast majority—about 4 in 5—experienced harassment, threats or violence. Most said it happened on social media; more than half said it also happened at public meetings.
The threat of violence was also increased starting in 2020 with the coronavirus pandemic, when public health officials imposed restrictions. Ohio’s state health director resigned after armed protesters were at her home; the health officer for Orange County, California, resigned after weeks of criticism and threats over requiring face coverings in public.
And Trumps false story that the 2020 election was stolen has led to threats against local election officials, leaving some feeling miserable or anxious enough fuses. Many are closely following the upcoming elections.
“It’s hard to imagine that there isn’t a voting jurisdiction in the country that isn’t on edge about the possibility of political violence in the 2024 election,” said David Levine, a former local election official in Idaho.
____ Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas; Mulvihill, from Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and Collins from Columbia, South Carolina. Associated Press writers Christina Almeida Cassidy in Atlanta; Matthew Barakat in Springfield, Virginia; Bill Barrow in Milwaukee; Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan; Dylan Lovan in Louisville, Kentucky; Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City; and Gabe Stern in Carson City, Nevada contributed.
