How Trump and the age of “crass, brutal politics” make extremist violence more likely

Political assassination and an attempt to kill Legislators Their husbands raised concerns about the height Political violence In the United States, amid extreme polarization – experts contact the elected officials to lead the charge in changing the tone.

“People should be careful about their political discourse,” said Benjamin Ginsburg, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University. “What politicians constitute to win the elections, they should remember that some people believe.”

Early last Saturday, a man from Democratic Deputy Melissa Hortmann fired fire in the democratic state. He was also wounded by another deputy democratic state, John Hoffman, and his wife in their home, while the authorities believe that he is a planned violent agitation.

Police says that the 57 -year -old Verse Poelter was impersonating the law when he carried out the attacks and hit the front doors of the legislators in the middle of the night. Officials said he claimed that he was wearing a “excessive realistic” silicone mask, the body shield and a tactical jacket, and carried a 9 mm pistol and drove the black four -wheel drive vehicle with a flashing lights and a license plate reading “the police.”

Boelter was arrested in a field near his property and began to seize the police on Sunday evening after a huge chase for two days. since then Accuse With two second -degree murder charges and two charges of attempted murder. As it faces Six federal feesTwo accusations of both chasing crimes, first -class killing and firearms.

The authorities also found a “successful list” of 45 officials, most of them, if not all of them are Democrats, and “No King’s Day” protesting what they say is the Boelter, according to American lawyer Joe Thompson. They believed that he was searching for legislators and plans to attacks for several months, and went to the homes of four legislators in Minnesota on Saturday morning “with the intention of killing them.”

“It is clear that his primary motivation is to go out and kill people. They were all elected officials. They were all democratic.”

Democratic ruler Tim Walz The shootings are also called “the act of targeted political violence.”

Guinsberg told a phone in an interview that such actions are terrible and disturbing, but the targeted killings are not the only form of violence.

“Violence of the Agency”, where each political party provides financial support or another to violent social groups, is more dangerous and increasingly leads to the “threat to the potential nation”. For example, extremist right groups were like proud boys and department guards Relationship building For Republican Party officials Via government levels.

“The most common violence – this is what we see a lot – is the individuals who are launched by the political climate,” said Ginsburg. “This is a political climate in which each side overlooks and condemns the other. There is no moderation and political discussion, and while most people can say,” well, this politicians and the media, “there are a certain number of non -independent people who take it seriously.”

He added that the political parties wearing their own militias and fighting to control the streets provide the most extreme incidents of political violence and threats to the health of the nation. The United States had cases of this before the civil war and during Age of ReconstructionBut you did not reach this level of disturbances today.

The shooting operations in Minnesota are the latest in a series of violent actions politically throughout the United States in recent years and the latest repetition of a direction that warns of danger. Only last month, two Israeli embassy employees said and were killed by a man that the application of the law said “Palestine is free” during his arrest. In April, a man who was alleged to shoot at the home of the governor of Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro, while Luigi was manganese last December, was shot and killed at the time, Brian Thompson.

president Donald Trump He survived his assassination attempt last summer during a campaign in Bater, Pennsylvania, leaving a blood -stained ear while the gunman shot a member of the public.

Research indicates that such violence and extremist actions are implemented by extremist right -wing actors often more than those on the left. A 2020 Center for Strategic and International Studies Of nearly 900 terrorist plots and attacks between January 1994 and May 2020, I found that right -wing terrorists committed 57 % of all attacks and attempts in the United States during that period. Relatively, the attacks of left -wing terrorists reached 25 % of those accidents, while attacks by religious actors and race are 15 % and 3 %, respectively.

This reality was recognized under the Obama administration, when the Ministry of Internal Security issued a report In 2009, warning that the high right extremism could cause Wall Wolf attacks and presented “the most dangerous threat to local terrorism” in the country. But conservative legislators and critics Criticize the report As a political propaganda when it was issued, forcing the Minister of National Security Janet Napolitano Issuing a statement It leads to the results that are buried and the official responsible for its production The charges are being charged.

Fears suffering from submission to the report not only “no signs of decline,” said Sherry Berman, a professor of Parrenard College of Political Science, who studies tyranny and democracy. As a result, Minnesota’s attacks should be seen in the context of the previous violence that it moves politically.

Berman told Salon: “I think the best way to think about this is the latest in a series of escalating violent conflicts that reflect some of the really deep divisions and diseases in the American political system – frankly, in American society on a wider scale,” Berman told Salon.

She said that the extreme polarization of the country – where both Democrats and Republicans believe that the other party threatens democracy and their ways of life instead of political opponents of priorities and wrong policies – makes it difficult to stop the cycle of violence.

Berman said in an interview on the phone: “This context generates more extremism, and gives people with disorders and somehow disturbances that they could use as an excuse for any violent and turbulent tendencies,” Berman said in an interview on the phone.

She said that although it is important for politicians to condemn violence publicly, their convictions are the beginning of solving the problem, not the end.

The “correct way to fight the” other side “is through the democratic rules of the game, through the peaceful processes of our political system, not through violence, not by shooting, and not by calling the forces to deal with the demonstrators. I mean, these are not the right solutions within a democratic system.”

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Trump is well known for adopting the disagreement, on the pretext of that One “violent” day From the police brutality eliminating the crime and claiming that the immigrants are “”Poisoning“Among the other comments. In the wake of the direct attempt in his life, his fist pumped, the” fighting “chanted and created a kind of Crying population gathered To resume his base.

In the wake of the violence in Minnesota, the president also Decline To invite Hakim Walzal, and instead, Democrat is called “chaos”.

Liliana Masson, a professor at Johns Hopkins University of Political Science, told the salon that the disarmament of political discourse becomes more difficult in light of a president whose actions indicate greater comfort with political violence from the traditional presidency, even if he issued a statement condemning the violence.

Mason said that the implementation of “illegal sincerity” directed at the immigrants, along with “pardoning people who are doing criminal activity but they are kind to him, or violent persons against the police in January-and this sends the opposite message from the message of social media.” “It is just an administration characterized by more violent actions.”

Mason added that the diagnosis of the future of the nation is “not good”, given that political polarization does not seem to die. However, she notes, that, compared to the size of threats against legislators on both the state and the federal level, the bad actors rarely follow up with physical attacks.

A 2024 Brennan Center for Justice I found that nearly half of the 1700 legislators of the legislators surveyed by the Progressive Reception that they have witnessed threats or attacks in the past three years. The United States in the Capitol Police as well Last year, it increased In threats against federal legislators for the second year in a row.

Mason said it was “very easy” for the elected leaders of such actions. She and her colleagues conducted an experience that reads a quote that encourages violence from former President Joe Biden and Trump, and found that the participants who read any quotation had agreed to violence less than those who did not read the quote.

“If we have a responsible leadership, this is a lower problem,” she said. “The problem is when we have leaders who deliberately breathe divisions and abuse their political opposition in a way that makes them feel or seem more evil, less human and more than an existential threat.”

Masson added that one of the voices of confidence is that most Americans generally reject the idea of ​​using violence to achieve political goals, and the nation still has a strong social base based on this belief.

She said: “It seems that we are in this era of brutal policy, but social standards are still present, and those that have been completely built, but enhanced,” she said. “We all have a role we play in reminding people how we are supposed to act as adults in democracy.