For Americans, Trump's assassination attempt seeds new fear about violent rhetoric

The bullet aimed at Donald Trump’s head Saturday, pierced America's psyche.

"Whether you like (Trump) or not … the violence is just out of control," Christine Ramos of Mason, Michigan, said.

In Palm Beach, Florida, Matthew Swift hoped the attempted assassination was a wake-up call.

"I truly hope this moment will bring about a reevaluation of the current tone of our politics and get us to shift to a much more positive and forward thinking place as a nation," Swift said. "I have spent my entire career traveling the world, and we all need to recognize just how lucky we all are to be Americans and hold ourselves to a higher standard.”

It's not yet clear how the assassination attempt may impact November's election, but it's reignited worries about the power of the words we use.

Dr. J. Cherie Strachan , a professor of political science at the University of Akron and director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics, said political scientists have been worried about the heat of American rhetoric and the rudeness people have expressed for more than a decade.

It doesn’t have to be this way, Strachan said.

“Political civility has the same markers and fulfills the same function as politeness does in our interpersonal relationships,” Strachan said. “The most important person to be polite to interpersonally is someone you don’t get along with, right?”

On Monday, Trump charged ahead with his campaign in Milwaukee even as investigators four states away continued searching for the motive behind a Pennsylvania man’s attempt to kill the former president.

The gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks , was a 20-year-old nursing home worker with a political contradiction: He was registered Republican, yet he gave $15 to liberal election group.

The Secret Service shot and killed Crooks during the assassination attempt, so investigators are left sorting through what Crooks left behind, looking for clues about what drove him.

Trump, whose ear was clipped by a bullet during the assassination attempt Saturday evening, used the opening day of the Republican National Convention to name Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his vice presidential running mate.

Vance, once one of Trump’s most scathing critics, has over the past two years become one of Trump’s fiercest defenders. In the hours after the shooting at the Trump rally, Vance blamed President Joe Biden for the political violence.

"Today is not just some isolated incident," Vance posted on X about two hours after the shooting. "The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump's attempted assassination."

Biden, during an Oval Office address Sunday, said "political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated" and asked all Americans to take a step back.

On Monday, Biden told NBC’s Lester Hold that Trump has amped up violent political rhetoric in this country.

"How do you talk about the threat to democracy, which is real, when a president says things like he says? Do you just not say anything because it may incite somebody?" Biden said. "Look, I've not engaged in that rhetoric. Now, my opponent has engaged in that rhetoric."

Biden highlighted Trump’s past comments about a "bloodbath" if he loses the 2024 election, his promise to pardon convicted Jan. 6 insurrectionists , and his jokes after Paul Pelosi, husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was attacked by a home intruder with a hammer.

Amid the back and forth, a moment of political civility emerged amid grief in the aftermath of the Pennsylvania shooting.

The widow of Corey Comperatore, a fireman killed protecting his family during the Trump assassination attempt, declined a phone call from Biden out of deference to her husband, a staunch Republican.

Yet Helen Comperatore said she holds no grudge against Biden, the New York Post reported .

"I support Trump. That’s who I’m voting for, but I don’t have ill will towards Biden," Helen Comperatore said, according to the Post. "He didn’t do anything bad to my husband. A 20-year-old despicable kid did."

Contributing: Mark J. Price, Akron Beacon Journal, Haley Bemiller USA TODAY Network Ohio and Joey Garrison and William Ramsey of USA TODAY

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: For Americans, Trump's assassination attempt seeds new fear about violent rhetoric