In York, Pa., a man accosted a group of people rallying for Vice President Harris’ White House campaign, punching a 74-year-old man in the head and calling another man a “n— supporter” as he fled.
In Michigan, an assailant enraged by his hatred of Donald Trump used an all-terrain vehicle to run over and injure an 81-year-old man who was putting up a yard sign for the former president’s reelection bid.
The attacks were among at least 300 cases of political violence since Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, including at least 51 incidents this year. With two weeks to go before the Nov. 5 election, the cases are part of the biggest and most sustained increase in U.S. political violence since the 1970s, Reuters reports
Some of the violence has been reported widely, most notably two assassination attempts on Trump.
Reuters documented scores of other cases on contentious political issues – from election disputes to LGBTQ+ rights and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Incidents ranged from small fights over political signs to violent brawls and property destruction at rallies.
Most of this year's violence wasn't fatal with the exception of two deaths: a spectator killed during July’s attempt on Trump’s life and the shooter.
The pace of cases has remained consistent since beginning to rise in 2016 during Trump’s first presidential run. In 2021, which included the tumult that followed Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, there were 93 cases of political violence, followed by 79 in 2022 and 76 last year.
Experts warn that the charged atmosphere around the 2024 presidential election has created a highly volatile situation. Trump in particular often uses incendiary rhetoric, threatening to put his political enemies on trial and to deploy the military against the “radical left”, calling them “the enemy within.”
Americans are starting to see violence as “part of the way politics happens,” said Nealin Parker of Common Ground USA, a nonprofit that studies ways to bridge the political and cultural divides. In the current climate of mistrust, she added, “incidents of violence can metastasize into something bigger.”
Prof. Robert Pape of the University of Chicago, who studies political violence, expressed concern over the prospect of post-election violence in battleground states, where the margin of victory could be a few thousand votes. He likened it to “a wildfire season” with lots of “dry combustible material” and the “potential for lightning strikes.”
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