The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump over the weekend brought a surge of misogyny and conspiracy theories online, according to experts who study extremism and political violence. Now they’re tracking the messaging and tone of politicians and others — including at the Republican National Convention that kicked off Monday in Milwaukee — to get a sense of what might happen next.
Heidi Beirich and Wendy Via, co-founders of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) , said they turned to multiple online messaging boards with a history of conspiratorial content after the shooting Saturday at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where the former president’s ear was grazed onstage as he spoke to his supporters.
What they saw — and shared on their site — were instances of misogyny directed at the women who appeared in rally photos protecting Trump . They also noted wide ranging speculation from people across the political ideology spectrum about who may have been responsible for the shooting, which also killed one attendee and injured two others. The suspected shooter, a 20-year-old Pennsylvania man, was also killed , and law enforcement officials have not released any information about a possible motive.
In the wake of the shooting, mentions and references to “civil war” on the social media platform Telegram, where far-right extremists are known to gather, jumped 1,244 percent, according to an estimate by Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. Similar searches increased on other platforms that Beirich and Via track, including 4chan and Rumble. The term was also trending on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Via, who has studied extremism for two decades and co-founded her organization in 2020 with Beirich after both worked at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said in an interview that the shooting frightened her in a way that few moments have in the history of her work.
“On Saturday night, I had this fear, like, ‘What is possibly next?’ And I think that’s what a lot of the country is feeling. They are exhausted, they are scared, and I mean across the political spectrum. So I think the entire country is in a wait and see mode,” she said. “None of this changes the policy positions that any candidates have. The only thing it might change is how they talk about it.”
In the hours and days after the shooting, however, many politicians, including those at the top of the presidential ticket, embraced a more conciliatory tone.
In an address to the nation Sunday from the Oval Office, President Joe Biden asked for unity, imploring Americans to “cool it down.”
“All of us now face a time of testing as the election approaches,” he said. “There is no place in America for this kind of violence — for any violence. Ever. Period. No exception. We can’t allow this violence to be normalized.”
Trump, who appeared at the RNC on Monday but did not speak, also said on Sunday that he will tone down the speech he plans to give when he accepts his party’s nomination later this week.
“I had all prepared an extremely tough speech, really good, all about the corrupt, horrible administration. But I threw it away,” he told The New York Post.
Trump, who has staked a part of his reelection bid on rhetoric that spreads disinformation about government officials , including those who have prosecuted him, undocumented immigrants and transgender people , also told the Post: “I want to try to unite our country, but I don’t know if that’s possible. People are very divided.”
In a separate interview with The Washington Examiner, Trump added: “I think it would be very bad if I got up and started going wild about how horrible everybody is, and how corrupt and crooked, even if it’s true.”
Other politicians also sought calm after the shooting, including women who themselves have experienced threats and intimidation . A handful pointed fingers across the political aisle, including JD Vance, a Republican senator from Ohio and newly announced vice presidential running mate, who said on social media that the shooting was “not just some isolated incident.”
“The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,” Vance posted Saturday on X . “That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”
The messaging and tone of elected officials in the days ahead, including at the convention, will offer more clarity on the scope of extremist postings online or the potential for more political violence, added Beirich, a longtime expert on forms of extremism that include white supremacy, nativist and neo-Confederate movements.
“I think the reason that it’s hard for us to say what’s going to happen is a lot of it depends on what comes out of the RNC convention, what that looks like,” she said. “Do we hear another fear-mongering speech from Trump, which he’s clearly been known for — or do we hear some completely different message and something that ratchets down all this emotion? I don’t know. I’m hoping for that.”
The assassination attempt on Trump adds to a long list of political violence in the modern era, including the January 6, 2021, insurrection, when supporters of Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of the 2020 election. A House committee later concluded that Trump’s false claims about a rigged election contributed to the attack, while the former president has tried to distance himself from the violence.
More recently, the husband of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was attacked at his San Francisco home. Authorities say Pelosi, who was not home at the time, was the intended target .
This follows other direct attacks on elected officials from both sides of the political aisle. In 2017, Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, then House majority whip, was severely injured at a mass shooting that targeted Republican lawmakers who had gathered to practice for a congressional baseball game. In 2011, then-U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords of Arizona survived a mass shooting at a meet-and-greet at a grocery store that severely injured the Democrat. Both released statements following Saturday’s shooting .
While Scalise issued a statement that noted “there is never any place for political violence,” he later sent a second one that put blame on Democrats for using language that equated the potential reelection of Trump with the end of democratic norms.
“Clearly we’ve seen far left lunatics act on violent rhetoric in the past,” he said. “This incendiary rhetoric must stop.”
Beirich and Via said that the public might associate political violence with attacks on politicians, but other incidents merit mention for their impact on groups that include immigrants, women, Jewish people and LGBTQ+ people.
“We don’t want to get into a position of classifying political violence only if political figures or candidates are involved,” Via said. “Political violence is about changing the system through violence.”
Via and Beirich pointed to the antisemitic terrorist attack at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 and a grocery store shooting that same year that killed two Black people and that authorities say targeted them because of their race.
“I do think that we’re in extraordinary times when it comes to political violence. We haven’t seen anything like this before, and it’s been on an upwards trajectory for the last maybe five, six, seven years,” she said.
In 2022, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism released polling that showed nearly a third of Americans fear a violent attack on Election Day and intimidation at the polls. It’s a dynamic that has impacted the work of election administrators and how guns are regulated at polling sites .
“I’m worried that it’s going to cause people to detach from the political process. An innocent person was killed at the rally and two others wounded. That kind of situation can lead to people being afraid to participate — not just about voting, but the process sort of in general,” said Beirich. “That harms us all, when people don’t feel that they can participate in the democratic process. That’s why I hope the calls are for the rhetoric to stop, the demonization of various populations to stop, hysterical language to stop, and a call for unity and a focus on policy.”
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