That is prayer from a Republican congressman when he had to deal with assassination attempt against Donald Trump at a political rally in the Butler Farm area, where he grew up.
“I’m really confused about what happened to the United States and how,” Rep. Mike Kelly, R-PA, told The Associated Press on Sunday morning.
The shocking attempt on Trump’s life has highlighted the toxic atmosphere in American politics. While details about the shooter’s motive remain unclear, the violence is another measure of how what was once unacceptable, if not unthinkable, in American society has become painfully commonplace.
As if Election 2024 Entering the crucial stage before the national congresses, the country’s response will be the first test. presidential contest Since 2020, an election has been defined by efforts to overturn Trump’s defeat and January 6, 2021, attack at the United States Capitol Building.
On Sunday, civic leaders, pastors and elected officials from the President Joe Biden down Call for Americans to unite, call for an end to harsh criticism.
“We cannot let this violence become normal,” Biden said in an evening address to the nation from the Oval Office.
Under the charged atmosphere, Republican National Convention opens this week in Milwaukee for re-nominations trumpet to lead the pack, as Democrats prepare for their own convention next month amid uncertainty over whether the party will continue to back incumbent Biden in an expected rematch.
Trump’s rhetoric, while tempered in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, has deepened and darkened in this third White House campaign.
This spring, Trump accused migrants of “poisoning the blood of the country” and has vowed to carry out the largest domestic deportation campaign in the country.told the auto people that there would be a “bloodbath” in this country if he is not re-elected.
“If we don’t win, I think our country is doomed,” he said during the New Hampshire primary.
Trump has promised revenge on his political opponents, especially those in the Justice Department, after he was indicted on federal charges. confidential document storage at his Mar-a-Lago home and in plot to overthrow the 2020 election.
Trump also downplayed the violence. When Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, was attacked by an intruder looking for the former Speaker of the House at her family’s San Francisco home in 2022 — hit in the head with a hammer — Trump mocked the security fence she installed as inadequate.
Trump made people laugh during a speech to the California Republican Party last year when he asked: “By the way, how is her husband?”
Biden, by contrast, has warned that a Trump return to power would pose a grave threat to the country’s civic traditions. He has chosen a site near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, for the First campaign event 2024described the possible rematch as “all about” whether democracy can exist.
Speaking to the nation on Sunday, Biden pointed to past examples of political upheaval, including the January 6 harassment and more recently the harassment of election workers, saying, “There is no place for this kind of violence in America, for any kind of violence, ever.”
However, one of Trump’s potential vice presidential candidates, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, said on social media over the weekend that Biden’s previous rhetoric against Trump “led directly” to the attempted assassination.
And House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has said it’s time to “cool this country down,” also criticized Biden’s recent comments on a call with political donors, in which the president said “It’s time to take a shot at Trump.”
Johnson said he knew Biden didn’t actually mean Trump should be targeted, but added that “there needs to be a call out on how that language is used on both sides.”
Nick Beauchamp, an associate professor of political science at Northeastern University in Boston, said there is now an opportunity for political leaders to “start couching their criticism of others in terms that explicitly condemn violence.”
From the 1968 murder American leaders From Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. to the attack on President Ronald Reagan in 1981, to the shootings of Republicans and Democrats over the past decade, violence has always been a part of American politics.
Recently, many other violent incidents have occurred that are linked to the country’s political struggles in terrifying ways.
Outside Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s suburban home, a man armed with a knife and a gun death threats Justice has been arrested in 2022. Members of Congress have experienced increased security threats. And harassment against Election officials from cities and states across the country have led a Departure wave because their livelihoods are threatened.
Last summer, FBI agents shot and killed a Utah man assassination threat Biden and calls himself a “MAGA Trumper.” The incident comes after a series of shootings earlier this year targeting Democrats in New Mexico, a high-profile shooting that led to criminal charges against a failed state legislative candidate who repeated Trump’s election fraud rhetoric.
A gunman killed in a 2022 shootout after trying to break into an FBI office in Cincinnati apparently took to social media and called for federal agents to be killed “on the spot” after a raid at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
“The warning lights have been flashing red regarding violence in this election cycle for months, if not years,” said Jacob Ware, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who focuses on domestic terrorism.
When Trump took the stage Saturday night, he opened his Pennsylvania rally as usual, marveling at the “big, beautiful crowd” that had gathered to see him — and dismissing Biden’s crowd as tiny by comparison.
The former president had just begun his speech, speaking into mass deportation agenda and complaints about a declining nation.
“Our country is going to hell,” Trump said.
A few minutes later, gunshots rang out.
Rep. Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania, who sat with other Republicans behind Trump, called it all a terrible tragedy. “The level of incivility and hostility, maybe this should send a warning signal to everyone who wants to calm the situation,” he told the AP.
As Americans gathered on Sunday, the common message was a call for unity.
The Rev. Chris Morgan, senior pastor of Christ United Methodist Church in Bethel Park, a few blocks from where the shooter lived, called on his parishioners to pray for the country during the morning service.
“Obviously there is a lot going on and a lot of things that are causing a lot of anxiety and a lot of struggle for people,” he said. “I want to encourage you to pray for those who have participated that they too may find meaning in showing kindness to others.”
