The political division in the U.S. has been reaching a fever pitch as the election draws closer, and although the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania this past weekend was absolutely horrifying and many people were surprised by the lax security at the event, few people have expressed surprise that someone could dislike him enough to try something like this.
In fact, there has always been an unsettling amount of violent rhetoric and threats directed against Trump. In the U.S., most of us have known since childhood that even joking about causing harm to the Commander in Chief could get you into serious trouble, but that hasn’t stopped politicians, celebrities and other high-profile individuals from calling for violence against Trump in very public ways – and apparently winning more fans among the woke crowd by doing so.
One of the more memorable threats came back when he won the 2016 election over Hillary Clinton. Comedienne Kathy Griffin posed for a picture holding up a mask of President Trump resembling a decapitated head that appeared to be dripping with fake blood. It drew immediate backlash from Trump supporters and even Trump himself. Her comedy tour was cancelled, and she lost an endorsement deal as a result.
Around the same time, singer Madonna said she wanted to “blow up the White House,” while Broadway star Carole Cook said, “Where’s John Wilkes Booth when you need him?”, referring to the actor who shot Abraham Lincoln at a play.
Actor Peter Fonda took it one step further and wished for Trump’s young son, Barron, to be sexually assaulted, cruelly calling for the then-11-year-old to be “put in a cage with pedophiles."
Threatening rhetoric has been ramping up recently
More recently, we’ve seen Representative Dan Goldman of New York say that Trump cannot be permitted to “see public office again” after he formally announced he was running for president again last year.
He insisted: “He is not only unfit, he is destructive to our democracy, and he has to be, he has to be eliminated.”
Last week, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that Trump “must be stopped. He cannot be president.”
Some have been far more explicit in their threats, like BBC reporter David Aaronovitch, who posted on X that if he were “Biden, I’d hurry up and have Trump murdered on the basis that he is a threat to America’s security.”
And although Biden himself was quick to condemn the attack on Trump and extended his sympathies to his opponent, we can’t forget that he tweeted a few weeks ago: “Donald Trump is a genuine threat to this nation. He’s a threat to our democracy. He’s literally a threat to everything America stands for.”
According to Politico, Biden used more threatening rhetoric last week in a call to donors, asserting: “I have one job, and that’s to beat Donald Trump. I’m absolutely certain I’m the best person to be able to do that. So, we’re done talking about the debate, it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.”
Political violence on the rise
It almost feels like it’s becoming normalized to make these types of threats, which were once considered very much taboo regardless of one’s opinion of a president. A study published last year by Reuters found that the U.S. was experiencing the biggest sustained increase in political violence seen since the 1970s, with much of it directed at people instead of property.
Another survey, published last month, found that 10 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that the “use of force is justified to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president.”
Despite this, Democrats have been trying to end Trump’s Secret Service protection in response to his recent felony convictions, making him even more vulnerable to all those who think it’s perfectly acceptable to do whatever it takes to keep him out of office.
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