{"id":15490,"date":"2024-07-14T21:12:43","date_gmt":"2024-07-15T04:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=15490"},"modified":"2024-07-14T21:12:44","modified_gmt":"2024-07-15T04:12:44","slug":"an-assassination-attempt-that-seems-likely-to-tear-america-further-apart-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=15490","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;An Assassination Attempt That Seems Likely to Tear America Further Apart&#8221; The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>By\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/peter-baker\">Peter Baker<\/a>, News Analysis, Sunday front page, July 14, 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Peter Baker has covered the past five presidents.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The attack on former President Donald J. Trump comes at a time when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/07\/14\/us\/politics\/trump-shooting-violence-divisions.html\">the United States is already polarized<\/a> along ideological and cultural lines and is split, it often seems, into two realities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/07\/14\/multimedia\/14dc-violence-fmqv\/14dc-violence-fmqv-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale\" alt=\"\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The scene of former President Donald J. Trump\u2019s campaign rally in Butler, Pa., after the shooting on Saturday.Credit&#8230;Doug Mills\/The New York Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>When President Ronald Reagan was shot by an attention-seeking drifter in 1981, the country united behind its injured leader. The teary-eyed Democratic speaker of the House, Thomas P. O\u2019Neill Jr., went to the hospital room of the Republican president, held his hands, kissed his head and got on his knees to pray for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/07\/14\/us\/politics\/trump-assassination-attempt-wounded.html\">assassination attempt against former President Donald J. Trump<\/a>&nbsp;seems more likely to tear America further apart than to bring it together. Within minutes of the shooting, the air was filled with anger, bitterness, suspicion and recrimination. Fingers were pointed, conspiracy theories advanced and a country already bristling with animosity fractured even more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The fact that&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/live\/2024\/07\/14\/us\/trump-shooting-news-biden\">the shooting in Butler, Pa.,<\/a>&nbsp;on Saturday night was two days before Republicans were set to gather in Milwaukee for their nominating convention invariably put the event in a partisan context. While Democrats bemoaned political violence, which they have long faulted Mr. Trump for encouraging, Republicans instantly blamed President Biden and his allies for the attack, which they argued stemmed from incendiary language labeling the former president a proto-fascist who would destroy democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/07\/14\/multimedia\/14dc-violence-02-wtmc\/14dc-violence-02-wtmc-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale\" alt=\"\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Setting up for the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. The shooting in Pennsylvania occurred two days before Republicans were set to gather for their nominating contest.Credit&#8230;Kenny Holston\/The New York Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr. Trump\u2019s eldest son, his campaign strategist and a running mate finalist all attacked the political left within hours of the shooting even before the gunman was identified or his motive determined. \u201cWell of course they tried to keep him off the ballot, they tried to put him in jail and now you see this,\u201d wrote Chris LaCivita, a senior adviser to the former president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the Trump campaign seemed to think better of it, and the post was deleted. A memo sent out on Sunday by Mr. LaCivita and Susie Wiles, another senior adviser, instructed Trump team members not to comment on the shooting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Either way, the episode could fuel Mr. Trump\u2019s narrative about being the victim of persecution by Democrats. Impeached, indicted, sued and convicted, Mr. Trump even before Saturday had accused Democrats of seeking to have him shot by F.B.I. agents or even executed for crimes that do not carry the death penalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After being wounded at the rally, Mr. Trump, with blood staining his face, pumped his fist at the crowd and shouted, \u201cFight! Fight! Fight!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What exactly drove the gunman, who was quickly killed by Secret Service counter snipers, remained a matter of speculation. Identified as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/07\/14\/us\/politics\/trump-gunman-thomas-crooks.html\">Thomas Matthew Crooks<\/a>, 20, from Bethel Park, Pa., he was a registered Republican but had also given $15 to a progressive group on Mr. Biden\u2019s Inauguration Day, more than three years ago. The authorities said they were still investigating his motive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The shooting came at a time when the United States was&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/07\/14\/us\/politics\/trump-assassination-attempt-wounded.html\">already deeply polarized<\/a>&nbsp;along ideological, cultural and partisan lines \u2014 split, it often seems, into two countries, even two realities. More than at any time in generations, Americans do not see themselves in a collective enterprise but perceive themselves on opposite sides of modern ramparts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The divisions have grown so stark that a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/maristpoll.marist.edu\/polls\/a-nation-divided\/#:~:text=Source%3A%20Marist%20Poll%20National%20Adults,Civil%20War%20in%20their%20lifetime.\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Marist poll in May<\/a>&nbsp;found that 47 percent of Americans considered a second civil war likely or very likely in their lifetime, a notion that prompted Hollywood to release a movie imagining what that could look like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The propulsive crescendo of disruptive events lately has led many to compare 2024 to 1968, a year of racial strife, riots in the cities and the assassinations of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. Protests over the Vietnam War helped prompt President Lyndon B. Johnson to drop out of his race for re-election that year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Until now, there had been one important difference. \u201cOf all the similarities between 1968 and 2024, the lack of political violence this year has been one of the key areas where the years diverge,\u201d said Luke A. Nichter, a historian at Chapman University and the author of \u201cThe Year That Broke Politics,\u201d a history of 1968. \u201cThat is no more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Michael Kazin, a historian at Georgetown University, said political violence had a long history in America. \u201cAs in 1968 \u2014 or 1919 or 1886 or 1861 \u2014 the violence that just occurred is rather inevitable in a society as bitterly divided as ours,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd of course there\u2019s actually less violence in politics now than there was in those other years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yet not since President Abraham Lincoln was shot by a Confederate sympathizer at Ford\u2019s Theater has an assassination attempt against a president or major presidential candidate so sharply exacerbated the partisan divide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Our politics reporters.<\/strong>&nbsp;Times journalists are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. That includes participating in rallies and donating money to a candidate or cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/article\/new-york-times-endorse-political-candidates.html\">Learn more about our process.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Presidents James A. Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy were shot to death by lone gunmen who were upset with them for one reason or another, but the killings did not become sources of schism between the Republican and Democratic Parties. The same was true with Dr. King and Robert Kennedy\u2019s assassinations, as well as shootings that missed President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt and President Gerald R. Ford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gov. George C. Wallace, Democrat of Alabama, was shot at a campaign event during his 1972 presidential run by a man who wanted to be famous. The attack left the segregationist governor paralyzed but eventually contributed to his evolution and disavowal of past racism.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/06\/01\/us\/john-hinckley-reagan.html\">John Hinckley<\/a>&nbsp;attacked Mr. Reagan out of an obsession to impress the movie star Jodie Foster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In recent years, political violence in America at levels below the presidency has become increasingly partisan. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Democrat of Arizona, was&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/01\/09\/us\/politics\/09giffords.html\">critically wounded in a mass shooting<\/a>&nbsp;in 2011, prompting angry criticism of Republicans for fomenting hate. Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, now the Republican majority leader, was&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/06\/14\/us\/steve-scalise-congress-shot-alexandria-virginia.html\">shot and injured during a congressional baseball game practice<\/a>&nbsp;in 2017 by a supporter of Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An armed man was\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/06\/08\/us\/brett-kavanaugh-threat-arrest.html\">arrested outside the home of Justice Brett Kavanaugh<\/a>\u00a0in 2022 and told the authorities that he wanted to kill the conservative Supreme Court justice because of his positions against abortion and gun control. Later that year, a man wielding a hammer broke into the San Francisco house of Representative Nancy Pelosi, then the Democratic speaker, and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/10\/28\/us\/politics\/nancy-paul-pelosi-attack.html\">beat her husband, Paul Pelosi<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The most famous recent case of political violence before this weekend was the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, by supporters of Mr. Trump trying to block the certification of Mr. Biden\u2019s election victory. The Capitol Police&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/09\/us\/capitol-police-special-prosecutors-threats-against-congress.html\">investigated 8,008 cases of threats<\/a>&nbsp;involving members of Congress last year. While most of them were not serious, it was the second-highest total in the department\u2019s history and has prompted the hiring of more prosecutors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many of these recent cases have led to not so much soul-searching as blame-setting. After Ms. Giffords was shot, Democrats assailed Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice-presidential candidate, because Ms. Giffords\u2019s district had been among 20 singled out underneath digitized cross hairs on a map circulated by Ms. Palin\u2019s political action committee, although there was no evidence the gunman knew about or was driven by the map.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>House Democrats impeached Mr. Trump for instigating the Capitol attack with his&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/01\/06\/us\/politics\/capitol-mob-trump-supporters.html\">inflammatory language at a rally<\/a>&nbsp;beforehand. The former president has a long&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/08\/31\/us\/politics\/trump-police-protests.html\">history of encouraging violence<\/a>. He urged supporters to beat up protesters at rallies, cheered a Republican congressman for&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/10\/19\/us\/politics\/trump-greg-gianforte-montana.html\">body-slamming a reporter<\/a>, called for&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/05\/29\/us\/politics\/trump-looting-shooting.html\">looters<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/10\/03\/us\/politics\/trump-indictments-shoplifters-violence.html\">shoplifters<\/a>&nbsp;to be shot,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2023\/09\/29\/trump-mocks-pelosi-family-as-he-rallies-conservative-support-in-california-00119243\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">made light of the attack on Mr. Pelosi<\/a>&nbsp;and promised pardons to Jan. 6 rioters. When some of his supporters chanted \u201cHang Mike Pence!\u201d on Jan. 6, Mr. Trump told aides that&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/05\/25\/us\/politics\/trump-pence-jan-6.html\">maybe the vice president deserved it<\/a>&nbsp;because he had defied efforts to overturn the 2020 election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Republicans turned the tables on Democrats this weekend, arguing that if Mr. Trump was responsible for provocative rhetoric, then Mr. Biden should be as well. Speaking with donors on Monday, the president said he wanted to stop talking about his poor debate performance and instead \u201cput Trump in a bull\u2019s-eye.\u201d He described his strategy as \u201cattack, attack, attack.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,\u201d Senator J.D. Vance, Republican of Ohio and a front-runner to be named Mr. Trump\u2019s running mate,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/JDVance1\/status\/1812280973628965109\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">wrote on social media<\/a>\u00a0two hours after the attack on Saturday. \u201cThat rhetoric directly led to President Trump\u2019s attempted assassination.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr. Scalise, also the victim of a political attack, agreed. \u201cFor weeks, Democrat leaders have been fueling ludicrous hysteria that Donald Trump winning re-election would be the end of democracy in America,\u201d he said. \u201cClearly, we\u2019ve seen far-left lunatics act on violent rhetoric in the past. This incendiary rhetoric must stop.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Representative Mike Collins, Republican of Georgia, wrote on social media that \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MikeCollinsGA\/status\/1812257581655531669\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Joe Biden sent the orders<\/a>\u201d and urged the local prosecutor to \u201cimmediately file charges against Joseph R. Biden for inciting an assassination.\u201d But not all hands are clean. Mr. Collins once&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=g5jaS9DsHT0\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ran a campaign ad<\/a>&nbsp;in which he fired a rifle at Ms. Pelosi\u2019s agenda and shot a cardboard cutout of so-called RINO Republicans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some Republican leaders took a more measured approach. Speaker Mike Johnson, speaking on \u201cToday\u201d on NBC, said on Sunday that Mr. Trump had \u201cbeen so vilified and really persecuted by media, Hollywood elites, political figures, even the legal system\u201d and cited Mr. Biden\u2019s \u201cbull\u2019s-eye\u201d comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI know he didn\u2019t mean what is being implied there, but that kind of language on either side should be called out,\u201d&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/donald-trump\/speaker-mike-johnson-trump-shooting-political-rhetoric-rcna161762\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mr. Johnson said<\/a>. But he emphasized that \u201cboth sides\u201d have \u201cgot to turn the temperature down in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr. Biden did not directly respond to criticism of his language during two televised appearances since the shooting, but he\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/07\/13\/us\/politics\/biden-trump-rally.html\">flatly condemned the attack<\/a>\u00a0and called Mr. Trump to express relief that he was not more seriously hurt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/07\/14\/multimedia\/14dc-violence-03-lmzb\/14dc-violence-03-lmzb-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale\" alt=\"\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">President Biden delivered brief remarks from the White House on Sunday about the attempted assassination of Mr. Trump.Credit&#8230;Yuri Gripas for The New York Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The danger is if political violence becomes normalized, just another form of the endless partisan wars.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/injepijournal.biomedcentral.com\/articles\/10.1186\/s40621-024-00503-7\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">A study published in May<\/a>&nbsp;found that 11 percent of Americans said violence was sometimes or always justified to return Mr. Trump to the presidency, and 21 percent said it was justified to advance an important political objective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But Garen J. Wintemute, the director of the Violence Prevention Program at the University of California, Davis, and the lead author of the study, said it was important to remember that most Americans still rejected political violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s the job of that majority to make their views known, over and over again, and as publicly as possible,\u201d Dr. Wintemute said. \u201cA climate of intolerance for violence reduces the chance that violence will occur. The question before us as a nation is, \u2018Will violence become part of American politics?\u2019 Each of us as an individual needs to answer that question, \u2018Not if I can help it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/peter-baker\">Peter Baker<\/a>\u00a0is the chief White House correspondent for The Times. He has covered the last five presidents and sometimes writes analytical pieces that place presidents and their administrations in a larger context and historical framework.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/by\/peter-baker\">More about Peter Baker<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By\u00a0Peter Baker, News Analysis, Sunday front page, July 14, 2024 Peter Baker has covered the past five presidents. The attack on former President Donald J. Trump comes at a time when the United States is already polarized along ideological and cultural lines and is split, it often seems, into two realities. When President Ronald Reagan [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15490"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15490"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15491,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15490\/revisions\/15491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}