That’s the call a Republican congressman made while speaking about an assassination attempt on Donald Trump at a political rally in the Butler Farms area where he grew up.
“I’m confused about what’s going on in the United States of America and what’s going on,” Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Kelly told The Associated Press earlier Sunday.
The shocking attempt on Trump’s life laid bare the toxic atmosphere in American political life. While details of the shooter’s motive remain unclear, the violence is further evidence that in American society, things that were once unacceptable or even unthinkable have become painfully commonplace.
As the 2024 election enters a critical stage before the convention, how the country responds will test the first presidential campaign since 2020, an election defined by the effort to overturn Trump’s defeat and the January 6, 2021, attack on the United States House of Parliament.
Civic leaders, pastors and elected officials starting with President Joe Biden called on Americans to unite on Sunday, urging an end to the vitriol.
“We cannot allow this violence to be normalized,” Biden said in an evening address to the nation from the Oval Office.
In a tense atmosphere, the Republican National Convention opens in Milwaukee this week, renominating Trump as the front-runner, while Democrats prepare for next month’s convention, unsure whether the party will hold on in an expected rematch. versus incumbent Biden.
Trump’s rhetoric, while toned down in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, has taken a deeper, darker tone during his third term in the White House.
This spring, Trump accused immigrants of “poisoning the nation’s blood” and vowed to launch the largest domestic deportations, telling auto workers that the country would see “carnage” if he was not re-elected.
“If we don’t win, I think our country is doomed,” he said during the New Hampshire primary.
Trump has promised retaliation against his political opponents, particularly in the Justice Department, after he was indicted on federal charges of storing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home and conspiring to overturn the 2020 election.
Trump also downplayed the violence. In 2022, Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, was attacked in his San Francisco home by an intruder looking for the former House Speaker and beaten on the head with a hammer. Trump mocked her for not installing enough security fencing.
Last year, Trump drew laughter when he asked, “By the way, how is her husband?” during a speech before California Republicans.
Biden warned that Trump’s return to power poses a serious threat to the country’s civic traditions. He has chosen a site near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, for his first campaign launch in 2024, describing a potential rematch as “all about” whether democracy can survive.
Biden addressed the nation on Sunday, pointing to past examples of political unrest, including Jan. 6 and more recent harassment of election workers, saying, “This kind of violence, any violence, will never be allowed in America.”
Nonetheless, Ohio Senator Vance, one of Trump’s potential vice presidential picks, said on social media over the weekend that Biden’s earlier remarks against Trump “directly led” to the assassination attempt.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said it was time to “lower the temperature in this country,” and he also criticized Biden’s recent comments on a conference call with political donors, in which the president said, “It’s time to put Trump on the back burner.” “It’s in the bull’s-eye.”
Johnson said he knew Biden did not literally mean that Trump should be targeted, but added, “Such comments from either party should be condemned.”
Nick Beauchamp, an associate professor of political science at Northeastern University in Boston, said political leaders now have an opportunity to “start using language that clearly condemns violence to criticize others.”
From the killings of U.S. leaders Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, to the attack on President Ronald Reagan in 1981, to the shootings of Republicans and Democrats over the past decade, the pressure for violence has been part of American politics.
More recently, other incidents of violence have intertwined with the country’s political struggles in horrific ways.
In 2022, a man who threatened to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh with a knife and a gun was arrested outside his suburban home. Election officials in cities and states across the country have been harassed, leading to a wave of departures due to threats to their livelihoods.
Last summer, FBI agents shot and killed a Utah man who had threatened to assassinate Biden and called himself a “MAGA Trumper.” The shocking incident follows a series of drive-by shootings targeting Democrats in New Mexico earlier this year, leading to a failed state legislative candidate being criminally charged for repeating Trump’s claims of election rigging. accusation.
In 2022, a gunman who was killed in a shootout after trying to enter the FBI’s Cincinnati offices apparently called on social media for federal agents to be shot “on the spot” following a raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
“The warning lights have been on for months, if not years, for violence in this election cycle,” said Jacob Weil, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who focuses on domestic terrorism.
When Trump took the stage Saturday night, he kicked off his Pennsylvania rally as usual, marveling at the “big, beautiful crowd” that had gathered to watch him and disparaging Biden’s own crowd in comparison. Insignificant.
The former president had just begun his speech, launching into his agenda of mass deportations and complaints about the nation’s decline.
“Our country is going to hell,” Trump said.
Minutes later, shots rang out.
Pennsylvania Rep. Dan Mercer, who was sitting with other Republican officials behind Trump, called it all just a terrible tragedy. “The lack of civility and the level of hostility, maybe this will send a loud signal to everyone to de-escalate the situation,” he told The Associated Press.
As Americans took stock Sunday, the common message was a call for unity.
The Rev. Chris Morgan, senior pastor of Christ United Methodist Church in Bethel Park, just blocks away from where the shooter lived, urged his congregation to pray for the country during morning services.
“Obviously, there’s a lot going on, a lot of things that are causing people a lot of anxiety and a lot of struggles,” he said. “I want to encourage you to pray for those involved that they too may find meaning in showing kindness to others.”
