American history is repeating itself in the most eerie ways.
If all goes as expected, Donald Trump will give a victory speech in Milwaukee next Thursday night and accept the Republican presidential nomination.
There was another reason for the adrenaline pumping in the crowds: Trump supporters were celebrating him for surviving an assassination attempt to derail his campaign.
Literally a block away, an eerily similar incident occurred when another former president, also seeking a comeback, was shot dead during a campaign attack and celebrated his miraculous survival with a group of enthusiastic supporters.
“I don’t know if you fully understand that I was shot.” Teddy Roosevelt Said In 1912, they were just yards from where Trump was scheduled to accept the nomination.
“But it takes more force than that to kill a male moose.”
Roosevelt showed the crowd his blood-stained notes, which may have slowed the bullet that narrowly penetrated his chest and saved his life.
Roosevelt did something else that day, and we’ll soon see if Trump follows his example at a time when American democracy hangs in the balance.
He turned down the temperature.
There was a fear that he would be surrounded by a mob, but President Roosevelt urged everyone to remain calm. His supporters called for action against the psychopathic shooter, yelling, “Kill him!” President Roosevelt urged first his supporters, and then the arresting police officers, to leave the man unharmed.
Something similar happened north of the border in 2012, when the leader of the Parti Quebecois Party was shot. Then, Pauline Marois Sustained Rhetoric This is to avoid inciting further violence.
Trump chose his words carefully in his opening remarks. statement Speaking about Saturday’s shocking incident, he thanked police, said he was shot in the ear, offered condolences to the victims in the crowd and said he knew nothing about the dead shooter.
Fear strikes at political violence observers
“I can’t believe this kind of behavior would happen in our country,” Trump said.
In fact, if it was anything but incredible.
Those who study political violence have been feeling uneasy for some time, and now this is a scene from the nightmare scenarios that have been playing out in their heads.
We’ve already seen Republican Rep. Steve Scalise survive a shooting, Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords also survived a shooting, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband was beaten with a hammer by an intruder in their home.
Almost one quarter Ten U.S. presidents have either survived assassination attempts or been killed.
And scholars who study threats to democracy are especially worried about the current political climate in the United States: hyper-polarized, hyper-angry.
Following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Robert Pape, a leading expert in the field, began conducting regular research. investigation We surveyed thousands of respondents to track the dark feelings of the American public.
A University of Chicago scholar spoke to CBC News about the latest research, which was conducted last month and adds a solemn backdrop to Saturday’s disturbing events.
He said the survey, conducted June 20-24, showed that 10% of American adults believe it would be justified to use force to stop President Trump’s reelection.
That’s 26 million people, about a third of whom own a gun, Pape said. Meanwhile, about 7% of American adults, or 18 million people (half of whom own guns), support using force to restore Trump to office.
“The shooting of former President Trump is the result of significant support for political violence in our country,” Pappe said. Chicago Project on Security and Threat StudiesHe added that he was also concerned about threats of retaliation against President Joe Biden.
“Political leaders of both parties and at all levels of government – the president, leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives, governors and mayors – must immediately condemn political violence, no matter what side of the political aisle it originates from.”
Two types of political responses
Michael Miller, who studies democratization and democratic decline at George Washington University, said events like Saturday’s could set the country on a different path.
He noted there are parallels in recent history: the stabbing of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil in 2018 and the shooting of Imran Khan in Pakistan in 2022. Both men survived.
“I wouldn’t say that either incident has dramatically changed the politics of this country,” Miller said.
Bolsonaro won the presidential election, then lost, and his supporters Attacked Last year, several Brazilian political institutions
And there are even more disturbing examples where acts of violence can lead to more violence, political instability, the suppression of democracy, or worse, as occurred following the political assassinations in the United States in 1968, the attempted coups in Venezuela and Turkey, or the political violence that consolidated dictatorships in Europe in the 20th century.
“A sudden violent incident can have a huge, negative impact,” Miller said.
“Because they are no longer playing a purely constitutional game, it gives them license in the minds of many involved to respond with violence.”
“But how the elites respond will matter a lot. They can either push to reduce tensions or they can use it to stoke polarization for their own purposes. I’m not optimistic about which direction Trump will go.”
Many U.S. politicians called for calm. They represent countless millions of thoughtful, level-headed people in the country.
Some people wanted answers. Republicans, for example, request The head of the Secret Service will appear at a hearing to discuss what some witnesses to the Pennsylvania shooting described as a “catastrophic failure.”
Witnesses told the BBC that Trump supporters saw a gunman with a rifle on a nearby rooftop and tried unsuccessfully to get Secret Service officers to intervene before the shooting began, eventually shooting and killing the gunman.
Others, as always, tried to water the roots of political hatred in the country and draw some attention for themselves.
These include anti-Trump social media accounts that wished him death or claimed he was carrying out the attacks for political reasons.
Notably, this includes pro-Trump members of the US Congress.
Georgia Republican Mike Collins said Biden Criminal charges were filed, Assert The president instigated this a few days ago. To tell It’s time for his own party to stop fighting among itself and “put Trump at the center of the target.”
Another Georgia Republican Condemned Democrats and the media.
“May God have mercy on our enemies, for we will not,” Marjorie Taylor Greene posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday.
The whole country needs that kind of mercy at the moment.
This isn’t a Republican issue or a Democratic issue, it’s an American issue, said one attendee at the Republican convention in Milwaukee.
“It’s a sad day for American politics,” said James Matthews, a small business owner in Alabama.
“Whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, that shouldn’t happen.”
