In a nine-week span, two assassination attempts were made on former President Donald Trump. The first happened on July 13 in Butler, Penn., where two people, including the shooter, were killed and another two victims left in critical condition. Trump escaped with a wound to his right ear, presumably a graze from a bullet. The second attempt on his life, on Sept. 15, was thwarted before it was executed. The Secret Service successfully detained the shooter before a single bullet was fired.
This is the climate of the 2024 Presidential Election. It’s enough to wonder — especially for college-age students just sticking their feet into politics — what in the world is happening in America.
Nolan Higdon is a media literacy and history professor at Las Positas. He’s also the author of several books examining the modern political landscape and the impact of media literacy, including “The Anatomy of Fake News” published in 2020. He said the recent assassination attempts are illustrations of the fervently divided current political climate. He called these “hyperpolarized times.”
“I really blame both sides for this,” Higdon continued. “Republicans deny the 2020 election, saying it was rigged. They have talked about Democrats, not just disagreeing with their policies but saying it threatens your way of life. You can’t have a democracy when people believe that. The inverse is true for Democrats though. They have said things like, ‘Democracy is on the ballot, we’re not gonna have democracy as we know it if (Trump) elected.’ That’s a huge claim. So if you’re gonna say that to people you better be sure.”
Assassination attempts aren’t abnormal from the perspective of American history. History records a multitude of attempted and successful assassinations of U.S. presidents, dating back to the early 1800s.
Famously, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to end the Civil War. He became the first sitting president murdered. Most famously, John F, Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. The last of four sitting presidents killed, including James Garfield and William McKinley, Kennedy’s assassination was a conspiracy that sparked numerous movies, books and — in line with the 60th anniversary last year — podcasts.
President Ronald Regan barely survived an attempt on his life in 1981. Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton all had shots fired their way by would-be assassins.
According to one report on the independent, non-profit news site The Conversation, 40 percent of the 45 men who’ve served as president have experienced known attempts on their lives. The prevalence of the attempts seemed to create an American expertise in thwarting them. A sitting or former president hadn’t been injured in an assassination attempt since Regan.
Until Trump. He and Theodore Roosevelt are the only former presidents to be shot, both happening while seeking reelection.
“What is occurring with the first attempt on Donald Trump’s life … was sort of a breakdown of the Secret Service and their ability to protect him,” said Bradley Bettridge, a political science professor at Las Positas.
“It seems they didn’t truly have the perimeter secure. They didn’t really have the infrastructure ready and they didn’t act quick enough, and it almost led to him getting killed. So I think that’s more the aberration. Like people over the last several decades have been thinking about this. There have been attempts, but the fact that someone got that close was a different thing.”
On Sept. 20, the Secret Service released a report of its internal review and blamed itself for the July assassination attempt on Trump.
All of the many attempts to snuff out the Commander in Chief have a context. So what is the true significance of these attacks on Trump?
For many, it seems more than the typical political rivalry of red vs. blue, elephants vs. donkeys. This era feels particularly driven by vitriol.
It’s an environment that has blossomed during the online age. Hate drives engagement and gets clicks. Contention draws attention. Politics, which have historically used fear and othering to rally support, have been given a vibrant playground through social media and its pervasive culture.
“We exist in an era of extreme, sort of negative partisanship,” Bettridge said, “in which people are less motivated to support their candidate and more to oppose the other’s candidate. So I think that there is rhetoric that exists on both sides that is pretty extreme.
“What we’re seeing in a lot of these situations,” Bettridge continued, “is sort of a radicalization that is fed online, that leads to these attacks. People want pretty radical things online because that sells, and I think that is something we’re going to have to figure out in politics and sort of, ease of talking about the stark differences between Republicans and Democrats without necessarily feeding into the notion that our democracy is about to end.”
So how does America move on, and learn from these moments of violence? How does the country find a way to promote civility in the political discourse? Higdon said only one demographic holds the power to do so.
“I blame the voters,” Higdon said. “The voters keep voting for this s***, these people who try to divide the country.”
Higdon said he believes the solution is for the American people to focus less on the ‘other’ political side and examine themselves and how they might be contributing to the growing division. Disagreement, Higdon contends, is possible without repulsion and condemnation.
The difference in opinions also aren’t meant to be this drastic — with only two extreme options. America has to find a greater moderate balance, Higdon says, with less polarizing stances dominating the political landscape. Otherwise, these moments of violence might not have an end.
“I’ve got bad news for liberals,” Higdon said. “Conservatives aren’t disappearing. I’ve got bad news for conservatives – liberals aren’t disappearing. We’re here forever. Let’s learn to live together.”
Top illustration: Donald Trump joins Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Regan on the list of presidents (former and sitting) who have been shot. (Illustration by The Express staff)
Jakob Arnarsson is the Editor-in-Chief of The Express. Follow him on X, formally Twitter, @JakobA2004
