How the Trump Shooting Reflects Growing Danger—and Divide—Among World Leaders

The world was stunned as a bullet grazed Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday—a brazen assassination attempt that left the former U.S. President bleeding from his right ear. But as condemnations poured in from around the world, the shocking incident was also a reminder of the raft of violence world leaders have faced in recent years amid increasing polarization and growing political divide.

In May, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico survived three gunshots fired at close range by a lone wolf while greeting members of the public in the town of Banska Bystrica. The populist leader, who shares an ideological alliance with Trump, said the Trump shooting was a “carbon copy” of previous attempts made on his own life: “Trump’s political opponents are trying to imprison him, and when that doesn’t work, they incite the public to the point where some poor soul picks up a weapon,” Fico wrote on Facebook. Similarly, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, who has drawn comparisons to Trump, was stabbed in the stomach at a campaign rally a mere month before the elections in 2018. The eerie moment fired up his base and propelled him to power. 

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Far-right leaders are not the only ones who have faced imminent danger in recent years. In July 2022, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was tragically assassinated. A few months later, Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan was critically injured after a surprise shooting. In January this year, South Korean opposition leader Lee Jae-myung, a leading presidential candidate for the next election in 2027, was stabbed in the neck while speaking to reporters at a public appearance. Last month, Danish premier Mette Frederiksen, a socialist democrat, was also attacked in the street two days before Denmark voted in the EU election.

What explains the skyrocketing political violence in recent years? Research finds that countries with heightened competition during elections are particularly at risk of experiencing election-related violence. That’s because the people who carry out the violence—whether a political party, outsourced militias, gangs, or ordinary citizens—feel strongly about a potential shift in the balance of power and a partisan division based on identity, according to Rachel Kleinfeld, who studies this trend at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. This is made worse by weak institutional constraints on violence.

In the U.S., the increasingly volatile political climate has been driven by a “Manichean us-versus-them” approach to politics, says Georgios Samaras, an assistant professor of public policy at the King’s College in London. “The polarization not only deepens the divide between political factions but also fosters an environment where violent acts become more conceivable,” he says.

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Yet, when right-wing leaders weigh in on such incidents, their response is usually charged with rhetoric that amplifies attacks on the media, political opposition, and prosecution. In response to the Trump shooting, Argentine President Javier Milei called it the “authoritarian agenda” of the “international left,” while U.K. right-wing firebrand Nigel Farage blamed it on a “liberal narrative” from political opponents. Similarly, in the Netherlands, far-right leader Geert Wilders accused “leftish politicians and media” of “playing with fire” in a post on X. And on Sunday, the Kremlin went a step further, accusing the Biden Administration of “numerous attempts” to remove Trump from the political arena through legal instruments like the courts and the prosecutor's office, which it said was done to “politically discredit and compromise the candidate.”

These calls are directly connected to a trend of more polarized and coarsened political debate in Europe, says Richard Youngs, a senior fellow in the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at Carnegie Europe. “When leaders call for de-polarization, they tend to mean that their adversaries need to moderate their language and policy positions, rather than applying the injunction to themselves,” he says. 

Trump’s supporters and Republican voters, who strongly believe Trump's conviction was politically motivated, are likely to interpret the assassination attempt similarly, adds Samaras. “This incident provides a rallying point, reinforcing their belief in a conspiracy against Trump and galvanizing their efforts as the election approaches,” he says. “The political climate is thus charged with heightened emotions and intensified rhetoric.”

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But experts point out differences between the polarization in Europe and its U.S. variant, too. For example, the response to Trump has been swift and compassionate—a stark contrast to Fico in May and Bolsonaro in 2018, where “the disconnect between many European nations and Brazil resulted in less support and understanding,” says Samaras. “These double standards highlight Trump's influence and how he is perceived on the world stage.”

In the wake of several crucial European elections this year, debates have intensified about the best way to deal with far-right parties. After Fico was almost killed, Slovakia’s major civil rights groups issued a statement condemning the attack on the Prime Minister, before adding: "Blaming the opposition, ideological and political opponents, the media or the nongovernmental sector starts a spiral of fear, hatred and further possible violence.” 

The events of last weekend’s rally shooting will only make this debate “an even more difficult and fraught one” across Europe, says Youngs.