The Vicious Cycle of American Political Violence

The attempt on former U.S. President Donald Trump’s life on July 13 marked the first time in more than 40 years that someone has shot a current or former U.S. president. It is still not clear what motivated the gunman, but his attack comes at—and adds to—a moment of high political tension across the United States.

To understand what this incident means for both the presidential campaign and the future of the United States, Foreign Affairs’ senior editor Daniel Block spoke on Sunday evening with Robert Lieberman, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University. “History reveals that American democracy has always been vulnerable,” Lieberman wrote in a 2020 article in this magazine, which he co-authored with the political scientist Suzanne Mettler. Roiled by the divisive Trump presidency, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the unrest sparked by the murder of George Floyd, “the country has never faced a test quite like this,” they wrote. Now, it faces another such test. The conversation below has been edited for clarity and length.

Over the past 24 hours, have you been thinking about any particular period or episode in U.S. history?

The thing that I’ve been mulling over is 1968, which was a year of political assassinations, of both Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy, in the middle of a very tumultuous presidential campaign in which an incumbent president was in trouble. U.S. President Lyndon Johnson eventually dropped out leading up to the Democratic Party’s convention in Chicago, which was turbulent. Now, again, we have a tumultuous presidential campaign under the specter of political violence.

What are some of the main lessons from 1968 that we should take away as we’re thinking about what’s going to happen next?

One thing we have to remember is that 1968 did not go well for the Democratic Party. Vice President Hubert Humphrey was anointed Johnson’s successor, and he lost the election. Richard Nixon, the winner, was not exactly the soothing, unifying figure the country needed at that moment. For sure, Trump will not be that figure if he ends up winning this election.

Are there any key differences?

At that point in 1968, the country was considerably less polarized than it is today. That’s where the parallel begins to break down. The Trump shooting happened at a moment when polarization is so intense that it is quite worrisome, because when polarization becomes very extreme, it is no longer a game between electoral antagonists. It instead becomes something like mortal combat, where people believe if the other side wins, it’s a mortal threat to their values and to the very existence of the country as they understand it. And it’s not that far a leap from that kind of polarized politics to serious violence.

The year 1968 is a good example. There have also been other moments when the United States has faced democratic crises, including the fraught 1798 presidential campaign, the Civil War, and Watergate. What forces brought about these incidents, and how are they at work today?

There are four features that help cause democratic crises. The first is political polarization, the second is conflict over who belongs in the political community, the third is high and growing economic inequality, and the fourth is excessive executive power. At least one of these forces has been present at every moment of democratic turmoil in U.S. history.

What makes the last four years different is that all of them are present. They helped fuel Trump’s rise and were part of why the country was vulnerable to an incident like the storming of the Capitol on January 6. And unfortunately, every such event only further weakens the country’s democracy. It makes the Trump shooting even more dangerous and provocative than it otherwise would be.

When polarization becomes very extreme, it becomes something like mortal combat.

When it comes to the possibility of more violence, what are the biggest risks? How out of control could matters reasonably get?

It’s hard to speculate. I don’t think a lot of people would’ve seen January 6 coming, even in the midst of then President Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric about the election being stolen. But we know that there are Trump supporters who are armed and who celebrate that kind of militaristic style of politics. So I really worry that if Trump and his people start talking about this in an inflammatory way, you could see not just sporadic attacks—which is what this shooting seems to have been—but more collective and organized forms of violence.

How do you expect the shooting will affect the rest of this presidential campaign? How might Trump respond?

Well, Trump has never shied away from embracing or celebrating violence. Think about his Charlottesville comments. Think about all of the rhetoric surrounding January 6—before, during, and after. He uses dehumanizing language to talk about his political antagonists. So what I really fear is that Trump will seize on this incident to further stoke violence among his followers.

We’ve already seen some Trump proxies promoting the idea that it was President Joe Biden’s political rhetoric that provoked the attack. They point out that Biden has advanced the idea that Trump is dangerous, that his victory would be a blow to American democracy. And they are trying to suggest that this campaign rhetoric might be what prompted the shooting. I really worry that Trump and his team will keep promoting this message. And the farther that message spreads among an already angry and armed population, the greater the risk of attacks.

How do you think the Biden administration should respond to this event?

President Biden has done the right thing so far, which is to denounce the act. He expressed condolences for those who were harmed—including Donald Trump, for whom we know President Biden has no particular love. He’s trying to call for some measure of unity.

But Biden is really a little bit on his back foot here, because the shooting becomes a rallying cry for Trump and his supporters. And the president’s job in this moment is to look presidential and look statesmanlike, which puts him at an asymmetric disadvantage rhetorically.

Trump has never shied away from embracing or celebrating violence.

Could his speeches still help heal the country?

I hope that the Biden campaign and the White House can find a way to sort of put a lid on what seems to be rage and fury and calm things down a little bit. But I fear that what Biden doesn’t have is the rhetorical gift of say, Robert F. Kennedy. After King’s assassination in 1968, Kennedy got up and almost extemporaneously gave what became a pretty well-known speech, calling for unity and calling for calm and calling for something positive to come out of this horrible event. Biden, to the extent that he ever had that kind of gift, doesn’t have it anymore. Especially given the events of the campaign in the last couple of weeks, it’s hard for people to see Biden as the figure who is really going to rally the country.

Is there an optimistic precedent for how the country might recover? What needs to happen for American democracy to survive this crisis?

I think the most optimistic scenario would be some kind of reckoning with political violence that leads to more unity. In the weeks after President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981, his approval rating climbed to the highest point it would reach in his entire presidency, and when he returned from his convalescence, he was greeted with magnanimity even by his political opponents. But for the country to rally against political violence today, there would need to be some restraint on both sides. I’m not sure that’s in the cards, given the forces at work.

The shooting came not long after the Supreme Court decision granted presidents broad immunity from the actions they take in office. If Trump does go on to win, could this shooting expand his plans or reshape how he governs?

The court ruling was another step in what we call executive aggrandizement, which is the gradual growth and consolidation of presidential power, concentrating authority in one person rather than dispersing it among many. It is one of those four forces that prompt democratic crises. The best example is Watergate, which was a story of Nixon using tools that had accrued to the presidency over decades in order to subvert the democratic process.

We already had the sense before the shooting that a second Trump term would mean the executive branch could become an instrument of his own ambitions, obsessions, or vendettas. And I think the worry is that this incident will only push him further in that direction. You can imagine that this incident will prompt Trump and his inner circle to bring the Justice Department or other prosecutorial arms down on anyone who even has a whiff of political opposition. The gloves could come off—if they were ever on.