An Expert on Political Violence Sees a Way Out of America’s Crisis

The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump shocked the nation — but not everyone was totally surprised.

“An attempted assassination on a presidential candidate was almost just a matter of time,” said Rachel Kleinfeld, an expert on political violence and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

In an interview with POLITICO Magazine, Kleinfeld noted the shooting comes amid a huge rise in threats and actual episodes of violence against lawmakers, judges and plenty of others engaged in the political process.

Kleinfeld said it’s possible the attack on Trump could help fuel further violence, but that doesn't have to be the case. Particularly if politicians across the political spectrum — including Trump — step out and try to ease tensions, it could make an impact.

In American history and abroad, she added, political violence can be tamped down — but the public also has to want it.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Are you surprised this assassination attempt on Trump happened?

Sadly, I am not surprised — given the reality of a tenfold rise in threats against members of Congress, increases in violence and threats against everyone, from people running for school board to state legislators, the doubling of serious threats against judges — an attempted assassination on a presidential candidate was almost just a matter of time.

When polarizing figures attempt to normalize political violence and make that a way in which they quiet moderates in their own party and opponents, they can't stop where that violence will go. And whether the shooter, who was a registered Republican, turns out to be acting from motives of the right or from the left, or was just a disturbed individual, we don't know. But once political violence is normalized, it spreads across the spectrum.

How worried are you that this is going to lead to further political violence?

It certainly could, but it could also be a shock to the system that leads regular Americans to realize that they need to stand up. A majority of Americans unequivocally condemn violence. A majority of Americans on both sides of the aisle condemn every sort of political violence when you ask them, and their voices have been lost. The media has been amplifying the extremes, and our politicians have been amplifying the extremes.

What we really need to happen in America has just happened in France and in Poland and even in Brazil — where Bolsonaro faced an assassination attempt — is for that broad swath of center left to center right to stand up and say, “We want a different kind of politician, and we want a different kind of political society.”

Do you think we’re seeing that now with the responses to the shooting from both parties?

It is far too early to say.

Does it matter what the shooter's motive was? Does motive change the perception of political violence?

I think if people perceive that the shooter was acting from left-wing motives, there will be a lot of finger-pointing, as has already begun by people jumping to conclusions like J.D. Vance. And if people think that the shooter was acting from motives of the right, they might recognize that an awful lot of violence that has been unleashed by the MAGA faction has been unleashed against moderate Republicans. It might cause them to see that dividing Americans into right and left is eliminating all nuance and humanity from our political discourse, and it's important instead, to return us to a point where people can have very complex views and disagree in complex ways.

So motive does matter, but it's not the end all be all. An individual willing to take violence into their own hands shouldn't be what a country as great as America turns on.

In your last piece for POLITICO Magazine , you noted that politically violent rhetoric — including from Trump — as well as politically violent action, with January 6,  has been going increasingly mainstream on the right. Does this contradict that?

No, we have seen an overwhelming amount of violence and threats from the MAGA right against moderates on their own side, as well as on the left. And we've also seen an increase in normalization of political violence on the far left, and whatever the shooter's motives turn out to be, those facts are still the case.

Are you worried though, about the efforts of politically violent retribution from extremists, the people that you've kind of raised the alarms about in the past?

In a country as large as America, even extreme fringes can be pretty big. So even if people who are okay with political violence represent only a few percentage points on the right and on the left, which is what serious surveys suggest, each percentage point is 2.5 million people.

Of course, there's a concern that this could lead to more violence, but what we need is unequivocal condemnation on every side of the political spectrum, and for an end to finger-pointing so that the country can take a breath and step back from the brink.

How do you cool the temperature of a nation at this moment and try to reduce the political violence in America?

The most important thing is for political figures to speak out, and we need them to speak out on all sides of the political spectrum. We've seen a great number of Democratic political leaders — Obama, Clinton, Biden and so on — speak out to condemn this action. We've seen some Republican leaders speaking out in ways that also are pointing fingers, and that's just not helpful.

What we need is accountability, not just for this political actor, but for anyone using political violence, such as the January 6 insurrectionists. You stop political violence through accountability, widespread condemnation from your own side and public revulsion.

It’s all of us regular people saying we don't want this in our society, and we're going to change how we speak about the other side to make it less common. It's the “Have you no shame?” moment, as in the McCarthy trials.

Are there any incidents in history or in other countries where they've been able to reduce political violence through such actions?

Absolutely. Brazil was having an uptick in violence against journalists and other forms of political violence under Bolsonaro, and when he was voted out by not just the left but the center-right who didn't want him anymore, you saw that violence go down. We've seen political violence reduce in our own country when political parties that tried to spread it, like the Know Nothing Party in the 1800s , fail or fall apart.

And so the best way to stop it is to vote out the political leaders who are trying to use incendiary rhetoric and normalize violence in our system. Political primaries are actually incentivizing extremism, and getting rid of political primaries and allowing people to run straight to a general electorate would help a lot.

When you have political leaders like Marjorie Taylor Greene or Lauren Boebert or so on, who are elected with less than 10 percent of their voting public because it's just a small primary base, then you're allowing more extreme positions to put political leaders in place, who then continue normalizing violence. MTG doxxed her Republican colleagues who voted for a bipartisan infrastructure bill. When you change those incentive structures and force people to run in a general electorate, they can't be so incendiary.

When responding to political violence are certain voices more effective than others? You wrote in your 2022 piece that Trump has helped super-charge the current atmosphere. Would a statement from him on political violence reach his followers more deeply?

People listen to their leaders, and so whoever has a following has a real responsibility to speak to that following. Absolutely, Trump should be speaking to his followers as Biden and Obama and Clinton have spoken to theirs.

Are you hopeful that this could be a turning point for the nation?

I hope that Americans will look in the mirror and not like what they see and start to change.