CISS Affiliate Nicholas Wagner and Other BU Scholars Discuss Assassination Attempt
Despite the nation’s polarized politics, Donald Trump’s near-assassination on July 13 united Republican leaders, their Democratic counterparts, and the media about one thing: the attack was “political violence,” officially defined as “the deliberate use of power and force to achieve political goals.”
“America’s Political Violence Crisis,” Time magazine trumpeted two days after Thomas Crooks’ bullet grazed the former president’s ear. Foreign Affairs magazine published “The Rising Tide of Political Violence: An Attempted Assassination of Trump Is Part of a Global Trend.” Senator J. D. Vance (R-Ohio), days before being nominated as Trump’s running mate and mere hours after the shooting, tweeted that President Joe Biden’s accusations about the Republican nominee’s authoritarianism “led directly” to the attempt on Trump’s life. Biden agreed that Americans needed to “cool it” with incendiary words—including himself, admitting error in saying it was “time to put Trump in a bullseye” before the attack.
Two weeks removed, however, experts say Crooks’ motives may have been more attention-getting than political….
To read more, visit BU Today, where this article originally appeared on June 29, 2024.