The US sits on a political powder keg of its own making

Americans hardly needed an assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump to realize that our civil society is fraying.

Last weekend’s horrific shooting feels in many ways like the logical progression of a political culture that has been growing increasingly extreme for years.

The former president himself has been a prominent purveyor of rhetoric that often encourages or fantasizes about violence against his political foes. This is, after all, the same Trump whose words have been cited over 50 times by men and women facing criminal charges for violence and assault. It’s the same Trump who, according to former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, once asked why police couldn’t simply gun down demonstrators protesting the murder of George Floyd. In fact, back in 2022 Axios detailed 10 distinct incidents where Trump praised or excused political violence.  

The sad reality of our politics in 2024 is that a growing number of Americans now agree with Trump’s view — and not all of those radicalized partisans support the president or his party. It isn’t clear that our political leaders truly appreciate the scope of this threat to the democratic order. 

Of course, Trump isn’t solely to blame for Americans’ increasing comfort invoking the language of violence in place of peaceful political disagreement. A growing number of state and national Republican lawmakers have invoked the threat of civil war if Trump loses the White House this year.  

As recently as July 4, pro-Trump Project 2025 leader Kevin Roberts called for a “second American Revolution” that would be bloodless so long as “the left” allowed it to be. Former GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin promised violence if prosecutors in multiple states proceeded with criminal cases against Trump. And in the days following the attack on Trump, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene ramped up her own rhetoric, accusing Democrats of trying to “destroy God’s creation” and laying blame for America’s political unrest at the feet of transgender rights activists and pro-choice voters.  

The language of political violence has become so commonplace in our media that it barely merits concern — that is, until the bullets start flying.  

All of this rhetoric has a profound effect on our national psyche. As I wrote back in late May, the risk of political violence has grown so acute that growing majorities of voters nationwide now expect to see some form of post-election bloodshed. That fact should be a huge concern to America’s elected officials, who swore oaths to preserve, protect and defend our Constitution and our free system of government. Instead, most seem resigned to living in this new era of hyper-violent political rhetoric, which breeds violent incidents like the savage attack on Paul Pelosi and the shots fired at Trump.  

This rhetoric is also poisoning the outlook of our young people. While a recent NPR/PBS/Marist poll found that 19 percent of American adults said they agreed that political violence may be necessary to “get the country back on track,” a stunning 42 percent of Americans aged 18 to 29 agreed with that statement. That means nearly half of the young people in this country believe the attacks on Pelosi and Trump are just the cost of doing business in a political world now defined by the language of extreme violence.  

Now, in the wake of the assassination attempt on Trump, there is danger of the cycle of violence escalating. 

Shortly after the shooting Saturday, Ohio Sen. JD Vance — now the party’s new vice presidential nominee — pointed the finger of blame in a post on X: “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.” If that wasn’t explicit enough, Georgia Rep. Mike Collins made his point even clearer when he posted, “Joe Biden sent the orders.”  

For a growing number of Americans prepared to justify political violence, these lines could be interpreted as a permission slip to engage in tit-for-tat attacks against Democrats they’ve falsely been told had a hand in organizing the indefensible violence against Trump. 

The data shows that the American people are increasingly taking to heart the extreme, violence-excusing rhetoric that now soaks every corner of our national politics. Elected officials are telling them that, in some cases and for the right reasons, political violence is an acceptable act. This is a road that will lead to disaster not only for the targets of this misapplied violence, but for public faith in the American system.  

For the good of our country, our political leaders must stop this lethal rhetoric. 

Max Burns is a veteran Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies.