America’s Political Violence Crisis

One night in January, 15 people trudged into an arts center in Nazareth, Pa., for a political focus group. Democrats and Republicans, grandmothers and high school teachers, they gathered in a room still decorated with Christmas lights to discuss their concerns about the democratic process with a group called Keep Our Republic, a non-partisan civic organization that focuses on threats to the election system. Ari Mittleman, the organization’s executive director, has observed similar events across the battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, so he expected the participants in Nazareth to express negative views about the 2024 elections, the candidates, and even the voting process itself. What Mittleman was not prepared for was a dark prediction that the panelists shared.

“The one thing that unified Democrats and Republicans,” says Mittleman, was the strong sense that “this election will see political violence.” In a recording of the Nazareth session shared with TIME, many participants said they believed it was a matter of when, not if, someone would be seriously injured or killed during the 2024 election cycle. “It was beyond unsettling,” Mittleman recalls. “Almost to a person, they were saying that political violence was going to happen.”

When it did happen on July 13 in Butler, Pa., the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump shocked the nation. But to many, it did not come as a surprise. The harrowing scene was surreal yet predictable, and not only because the U.S. has an ugly history of attacks against Presidents and presidential candidates. The gunshots fired by a skinny 20-year-old perched on a roof overlooking the Butler Farm Show grounds were a reminder of America’s political reality in 2024, which has been warped by increasingly violent rhetoric, threats, and attacks.

Read More: The United States of American Violence

For years, polls have traced a sharp rise in the share of Americans who believe violence is a valid means to achieve their political goals. In a December 2021 survey by the Washington Post and the University of Maryland, 1 in 3 respondents said they thought violent action against the government can be justified, compared with fewer than 1 in 10 in the 1990s. In an April PBS/Marist poll, 28% of Republicans and 12% of Democrats said they believe Americans may “have to resort to violence to get the country back on track.” In June, 10% of respondents surveyed by the University of Chicago’s Project on Security and Threats said that the “use of force is justified to prevent Donald Trump from becoming President.”

This trend has coincided with a documented surge in violent threats, harassment, and physical attacks targeting elected and civic officials, from prominent legislators and governors to small-town election clerks and school-board members. The wave of invective and intimidation has hollowed out local institutions, disrupted systems of law and government, drummed dedicated public servants out of office, and deterred others from running, especially women and people of color.

Read More: Public Officials Face Surge of Threats Ahead of 2024 Election

To many Americans, the prospect of political violence has become immediate and visible. More people are bringing guns to demonstrations. Every politically charged event, from Supreme Court decisions to Trump’s trials to congressional hearings, elicits menacing warnings and talk of “civil war.” The last presidential election ended in a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol by an angry mob that left five people dead and 140 injured. The vibes feel even darker this time, with the same two candidates describing one another as an existential threat to the nation.

Experts in political extremism expected these combustible factors to finally ignite with a high-profile attack. “It’s the manifestation of the political environment we’re in,” says Daryl Johnson, a former senior intelligence analyst who tracked domestic extremism at the Department of Homeland Security. “And there’s gonna be more.”

Thomas Matthew Crooks, the suspect identified as the assailant who shot at Trump, remained a puzzle to investigators in the days after the shooting. Unlike most 20-year-olds, he seems to have had no public digital presence. He had no previous criminal record or documented history of mental illness, and used no threatening language on his private social media accounts, according to FBI investigators. He was a registered Republican, according to Pennsylvania voter data, but Federal Election Commission records show he made a $15 donation to a progressive political action committee in 2021. It is not even clear that his purpose in firing shots at Trump’s rally— which, in addition to wounding the former President, killed a rallygoer and seriously wounded two others—was primarily political.

Crooks was living with his parents, who are both licensed professional counselors, in a middle-class Pittsburgh suburb. Two years out of high school, he worked in the kitchen of a local nursing home. He used an AR-style semiautomatic rifle legally purchased by his father, according to local law enforcement. Investigators also found “rudimentary” explosive devices and bombmaking material inside his car and home.

If the mystery surrounding Crooks’ motive is unusual, his normal background is not. Most perpetrators of political violence are not people with a history of criminality. They are seemingly ordinary Americans, off the radar of the authorities, for whom the idea of taking violent action privately crystallizes. “They seem to just come out of the blue,” says Johnson, the former Homeland Security analyst. 

What is clear, experts say, is that the political environment plays a role. Crooks grew up in a nation where high-profile attacks against elected officials have become increasingly common. He was 7 when Democratic Representative Gabby Giffords was shot while meeting with constituents in a supermarket parking lot in Tucson, Ariz., in 2011. He was 13 when Representative Steve Scalise was shot by a left-wing extremist during a GOP congressional baseball team practice in Virginia in 2017. When Crooks was 17, federal authorities foiled a plot to kidnap Michigan’s Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer that was hatched by a right-wing militia group that posted violent antigovernment screeds. Crooks was a junior in high school when the country was rocked by the attack on the U.S. Capitol. As he graduated, the news was dominated by a disrupted plot to assassinate conservative Supreme Court Justices and an attack on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, whose skull was fractured by a conspiracy theorist wielding a hammer and zip ties and planning to kidnap the Democratic legislator.

“Since they were young adolescents, there has been a skyrocketing of political threats and political violence,” says Rachel Kleinfeld, an analyst who focuses on polarization and violence at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “That coarsening of political life, the normalization of incendiary and violent rhetoric, the sense that violence is a legitimate way to solve political problems,” she says, adding that this is “the background noise to this generation’s political rise.”

Threats against members of Congress are up nearly tenfold since 2015, with more than 8,000 reported last year, according to the U.S. Capitol Police. Serious threats against federal judges that trigger an investigation rose from 179 in 2019 to 457 in 2023. In a survey conducted earlier this year, more than 40% of state legislators reported being threatened or attacked during the past three years; nearly 90% said they had suffered other forms of abuse, including harassment, intimidation, and stalking. “It’s not registering for Americans that the general tenor of political life has become one in which you can expect to be threatened,” says Kleinfeld. Now, she says, “that is the cost of running for office.”

In the past, experts say, ideology tended to be the main motivator for violent political attackers, from ecoterrorists to antiabortion extremists. The recent surge has been more partisan, tied to Americans’ strong identification as Democrats or Republicans. Social media platforms and diffuse online communications have radicalized more people and made it easier for them to threaten political opponents or to target members of their own parties they see as traitors. 

Language plays a role too. Trump pledged to “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin” and warned that “if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole country.” During his presidential campaign, Joe Biden has condemned Trump’s “assault on democracy,” telling supporters that their “freedom is on the ballot.”

“The state of American politics is so miserable, so ugly, that it’s almost unrecognizable,” says former Pennsylvania Republican Representative Charlie Dent, who is involved in the Keep Our Republic organization and was alarmed by the Nazareth focus group’s anticipation of political violence. “One side says the elections are rigged, and we won’t have a country if we don’t win,” Dent says. “The other side says democracy will cease to exist and the country will lapse into a fascist authoritarian society like The Handmaid’s Tale. Both see the other as evil and illegitimate.” Adds Dent: “At this rate, the country could experience civil disorder after the election regardless of the outcome.”

The footage of the assassination attempt on Trump, against the backdrop of violent threats at every level of government, could radicalize even more Americans, security analysts fear. Each prominent act of political violence adds to a cycle of “continued violent mobilization and countermobilization” by far-right and far-left individuals and groups, who may use these events to radicalize and recruit more followers, according to a new report by Washington-based New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy. “Neither likely outcome of the 2024 U.S. presidential election is expected to stem the heightened activity of domestic extremists, including those willing to use violence, for the next four years or more,” analysts conclude in the July 10 report.

In their most recent threat assessment, DHS officials flagged domestic extremists motivated by partisan grievances or antigovernment conspiracies as a top national-security risk. Individuals or organized groups could target candidates, government officials, voters, and campaign events as well as election infrastructure such as polling places or ballot drops, analysts say. In contrast with much of the past two decades, when U.S. officials focused on larger terrorist groups, the highest threat now comes from self-radicalized Americans and “lone offenders,” DHS concluded. 

Taking office after the Jan. 6 attack, the Biden Administration vowed to fight the “rising tide” of domestic extremism. The U.S. government shifted resources from foreign terrorism to understanding homegrown radicalization and released a national strategy to address the problem. The plan included improved information sharing among law-enforcement agencies, investigating and understanding extremist ideologies, and preventing recruitment by these groups. The FBI distributed 40,000 booklets to partners on how to spot the signs of violent extremism.

Read More: Inside the Biden Administration’s Uphill Battle Against Far-Right Extremism

While the Administration succeeded in dismantling some organized groups and militias, self-radicalized “lone wolf” actors continue to be the major driver of political violence. They are able to engage “in lethal attacks and acts of violence against targets of opportunity, using rudimentary tactics and readily accessible weapons,” according to a 2021 FBI analysis. The normalization of apocalyptic and menacing language online has also made it difficult to gauge whether a threat is imminent. In one recent case, authorities found an extensive, chilling trail of threats posted by a failed candidate for the New Mexico state legislature only after he was charged with orchestrating a scheme to shoot at the homes of several elected Democratic officials.

Far-right online communities, where talk of “civil war” and armed retaliation has become commonplace since the 2020 election, were flooded with angry messages after the attempted assassination of Trump. Some said they were taking his exhortation to “Fight! Fight! Fight!” literally. “They tried to kill my President,” one person posted on a pro-Trump forum. “I want revenge.” The FBI says threats of political violence have spiked since the Pennsylvania shooting, with individuals online mimicking or posing as the shooter and spurring fears of copycats, according to Deputy Director Paul Abbate.

Read More: Accused ‘Mastermind’ of New Mexico Political Shootings Left A Chilling Digital Trail

In the aftermath, Trump issued a rare call for unity. “This is a chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world, together,” he said. But it’s unclear how long the former President, whose campaigning leans heavily into incendiary speeches and often violent imagery, will stick to that subdued tone. It’s also unclear if Biden, who condemned the attack and called on Americans to “cool it down,” will dial back his campaign’s core theme that Trump represents an existential threat to American democracy. 

There are already signs that a new tone from the top is unlikely. Republicans have blamed the shooting on Biden and his claim that Trump is a dangerous autocrat who needs to be stopped. Trump’s running mate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, said the Biden campaign’s messaging “led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.” Both sides have trafficked in baseless conspiracy theories. Georgia Republican Representative Mike Collins tweeted, “Joe Biden sent the orders.” Some on the left suggest that the Trump campaign faked the shooting with the help of the Secret Service, and that the blood on Trump’s ear came from gel capsules. Dmitri Mehlhorn, a Democratic fundraiser and strategist, sent an email questioning whether “this ‘shooting’ was encouraged and maybe even staged so Trump could get the photos and benefit from the backlash,” calling it a “classic Russian tactic.”

It’s possible for Americans to stop the cycle, experts say. “Americans could look in the mirror, be shocked by what they see, and stop normalizing the incendiary rhetoric and violence that is leading to these sorts of events,” says Kleinfeld. Or, she says, “they will point fingers, as is already happening, and use the opportunity to try to score political points. And if they do, it will continue to get worse.”