MILWAUKEE – Chris Slinker was driving to his mother’s house when the news broke that a gunman had shot at former President Donald Trump during his rally in Pennsylvania.
“The first feeling I had was I was scared. I was actually nervous and scared,” Slinker, a Wisconsin delegate, said Monday. “When I got to her house, turned on the TV and saw that he did escape and it did not kill him, it turned into more of a ‘fight’ attitude.”
Two days later, Slinker and other delegates who spoke with PBS News at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee said the assassination attempt against Trump has changed the mood.
“I feel like you can sense the whole unifying factor across the country,” said Travis Couture-Lovelady, a delegate from Kansas. “I believe lots of folks that are saying, ‘OK, the discourse is too far.’”
And that’s why some of the delegates are eager to hear a message of unity and resilience from Trump.
“I would say that the delegates are eager to hear from President Trump, eager to see him, and to just get some reassurance about how he’s doing,” Rep. Erin Houchin, R-Indiana, said.
Experts have pointed to a rise in political violence and threats over the past decade along polarizing party lines.
Sheri Brady, a delegate from Oregon, said rhetoric pushed by “the progressive left” is contributing to the political violence the country has seen in recent years.
“They are painting a portrait of President Trump and his policies that doesn’t reflect reality,” she said. “The media plays a big role in that in the words that they use, the tone that they’ve taken to represent what he stands for and what he’s trying to do.”
To tone down the rhetoric, she said, “I think we need to realize that we’re all human and focus on what we have in common. We are united as Americans. We need to focus on why we love America, what we have in common, and stop dehumanizing our opponents and people that don’t see things as we see them.”
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