Republicans seek to pin charge of ‘political violence’ on Democrats after the assassination attempt

Within hours of the attempted assassination of former US President Donald Trump, many of his supporters began blaming Democrats, seeking to radically reverse course against those who fueled the heated US political discourse as cases of political violence reached unprecedented levels.

From Republican moderates to far-right conspiracy theorists, a unified message emerged that President Joe Biden and other Democratic leaders laid the groundwork for Saturday’s shooting by portraying Trump as an autocrat who posed a serious threat to democracy.

However, a Reuters analysis of more than 200 incidents of politically motivated violence between 2021 and 2023 presented a different picture: in those years, deadly political violence emanated more often from the American right than from the left.

Reuters found in the report, published last year, that the United States is facing the most sustained wave of political violence in a decade of unrest that began in the late sixties.

This violence has come from across the ideological spectrum and includes large-scale attacks on property during left-wing political demonstrations.

But attacks on people — from beatings to killings — were mostly perpetrated by suspects working to serve right-wing political beliefs and ideology.

Just after Saturday’s attack, right-wing websites were abuzz with assertions that left-wing rhetoric motivated Trump’s attacker.

Many commentators have blamed the White House shooting under Biden or pushed unfounded conspiracy theories, including the claim that a shadowy “deep state” gang within the government orchestrated the incident.

One user of the pro-Trump patriots.win website said, “I don’t think this will be the last attempt to kill Trump… The deep state has no other choice now”.

Another user called for the federal government to be purged by saying, “It’s either us or them”.

Trump’s Republican supporters specifically referred to a comment Biden made on July 8, July when the president discussed his poor performance in the debate with Trump during a meeting with donors.

According to a transcript of the call his campaign sent to reporters, Biden said, “I’ve one task ahead of me, and that is to beat Donald Trump… We’re done talking about the debate. It’s time to put Trump in the crosshairs… He hasn’t done anything for the last ten days except walk around using his golf cart”.

Some Republican incumbents have used the crosshair caption as an example of Biden’s violent imagery in describing the November presidential election, and criticized Biden and other Democrats for portraying the former president as a threat to democracy and security.

In a speech in the Oval Office of the White House, Biden stressed the need to unite divided Americans after an assassination attempt in which Republican rival Donald Trump was injured during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

Biden said the shooting of Trump “calls us all to be patient… Fortunately, Trump was not seriously injured”.

It was the third time Biden had used the official Oval Office to comment on issues of major importance to Americans since taking office in 2021.

Biden’s appearance in the Oval Office allows him to highlight the power of the incumbent, an important avatar as he fends off efforts by some members of his Democratic Party who are calling on the 81-year-old president to step down from the presidency over concerns about his lack of mental capacity.

Although gun violence is a fact of life in the United States, political violence is extremely rare.

Biden and his team are trying to chart a new campaign course in the wake of the shooting of Trump, a former president Biden sees as a threat to American democracy if elected on November 5.

The campaign eliminated verbal attacks on the former president to focus instead on the future.

Hours after the shooting during Trump’s campaign rally, Biden’s campaign began halting television ads and suspending other political communications.