The U.S. has had a long history of political violence, but experts see a new trend

Just days before the apparent second attempted assassination of Donald Trump, Colin Clarke gathered in New York with experts for a global summit on counterterrorism and political violence.

Clarke, director of research at a security and intelligence consulting firm called the Soufan Group, said a feeling of dread was shared even then.

“There's a real sense of urgency and concern that we are going to see more political violence surrounding this upcoming election,” he said.

This weekend’s events have only compounded that sense of foreboding.

On Sunday, 58-year old Ryan Routh allegedly tried to assassinate the former president while he was golfing at his Florida club. Routh appeared in federal court on Monday, but so far, law enforcement authorities have not disclosed a known motive behind the episode. Nonetheless, the incident has intensified concerns over the growth of political violence in the U.S., and the likelihood of it worsening in the remaining weeks before the election.

“I'm very pessimistic about where we're heading in the lead-up to November,” said Clarke.

Uptick in political violence

The U.S. has a long history of political violence, but multiple sources suggest that the scope and frequency of political harassment, threats and violence are reaching new levels. Gary LaFree, a criminology professor at the University of Maryland and former director of the UMD National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START Center), said that the center’s data indicate that the trend began almost a decade ago.

One database, which tracks incidents of terrorism across the globe, shows that the 1970s were a high water mark for political violence in the U.S. A wide range of groups committed criminal acts in attempts to coerce policy change or instill mass fear, including activists for Puerto Rican independence, domestic terrorists like the Ku Klux Klan, anti-Vietnam war agitators and the far-right, militant Jewish Defense League. But the numbers fell sharply in decades following.

“We had some years where we didn't have a single case that qualified for our database as terrorism in the United States in the 2000s,” said LaFree. “And then we start to see this uptick in about 2015, 2016.”

LaFree said there’s a notable difference in the ideology underpinning attacks in the 1970s versus during the last decade.

“Back in the 70s, most of the action was coming from leftist groups,” he said. “The big players right now are right-wing groups, actually.”

Everyday political violence

Beyond incidents that qualify as terroristic, however, there is a growing sense that everyday political violence has been on the rise. For two years, the Bridging Divides Initiative and CivicPulse have conducted quarterly surveys of local elected officials to assess the level of harassment, threats and violence they experience. It has found baseline levels of hostility against these officials to be consistently high.

“It's part of the larger atmospherics that we have in this country, where nearly anything you do could be perceived as having some kind of political connection, no matter the kind of position you may have,” said Jason Blazakis, director of the Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

Blazakis said this development, in which everyday Americans find themselves in the crosshairs of the so-called “culture wars” that animate political rivalry, is part of a dangerous stew.

“Those atmospherics, coupled with the election polarization driven by the rise of conspiracy theories, mis- and disinformation, and then the global political scene... is making for a really dangerous situation,” he said. “And then you add to that sort of recipe our gun culture and the easy access people have to guns.”

Stoking the flames

Among the most concerning aspects of this growth in political violence is the role that high-profile figures have played in amplifying conspiracy theories and lies. In the days following the nationally televised debate between Trump and Vice President Harris, in which the former president parroted debunked narratives about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, bomb threats against city facilities and schools followed, and Haitian immigrants have reported feeling unsafe.

After Sunday’s apparent attempted assassination of Trump, Elon Musk published and then deleted a post on X, the social media platform that he owns, that some took to be a call for assassination attempts against Harris and President Biden. Musk has claimed that the post was meant as a joke.

In the counterterrorism world, Blazakis said that these kinds of statements from influential figures can have real-world consequences – something known as “stochastic” terrorism.

“Stochastic terrorism isn't necessarily a kind of terrorism that might be necessarily motivated by a certain strain or ideology, but instigated by the rhetoric of individuals being inspired to carry out, for instance, attacks based on the dog whistles of somebody who might be a charismatic leader,” said Blazakis.

Clarke said stochastic terrorism, however, is complex, because those who peddle conspiracy theories and incendiary narratives often deny any relation to violence that may follow.

“The almost egging on or kind of walking right up to the line and kind of pushing supporters right into that kind of mindset, that engaging in any type of violence is actually noble in some ways,” said Clarke. “But then when people are questioned, they easily back away and say, ‘Oh, no, no, that was merely, you know, heated rhetoric.’ Or, ‘I was trying to mimic what the other side was saying about me.’ No one ever takes responsibility for this, but words we know have consequences, especially when people are riled up.”

Concern about the weeks to come

So far, there has been little evidence that Trump’s campaign and other influential voices on the right are backing away from public statements that deepen division and grievance. On Tuesday, Trump again reiterated the lie that Democrats cheated in the 2020 election and vowed to prosecute individuals “to the fullest extent of the Law” for their alleged role if he returns to the White House.

To experts like Blazakis, there is concern that efforts to curb acts of political violence will largely fall entirely to the law enforcement apparatus to detect and prevent.

“What I'm most concerned about is individuals taking inspiration from these last two assassination attempts and to try to be copycats,” said Blazakis. “At the same time, I think the rhetoric from our politicians is only going to become more heated, and that might also trigger individuals to become inspired to carry out some kind of act of violence.”

Stopping such attacks before they occur, however, has become a more difficult task, said Clarke. He said he doesn’t see organized paramilitary groups or people posting prominently online as the major concern here.

“I'm more concerned about the silent militia types that have their guns that are, you know, very pro-2A,” he said, referencing the Second Amendment. “The people that aren't out there running their mouths.To me, those are the [Oklahoma City bomber] Tim McVeighs of the world and those are the people that are really serious and can really cause real harm in this country if they want to.”