Experts have told the News4 I-Team for months that support for politically motivated violence is at alarming levels in our country.
It’s been 64 days since former President Trump was shot at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and we don’t know the motive behind Sunday's apparent attempted assassination – but we do know that the environment surrounding the run-up to November's election is very charged.
In the most recent survey of support for political violence in America from a group at the University of California - Davis, 25% of Americans surveyed believe violence is usually or always justified to advance a political objective.
That’s down a little since last year, but it’s potentially more dangerous as the people who support violence say they are more likely to use a gun in support of that goal.
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Experts who study this at American University see the same sort of concern, and to them, some of the most concerning parts of this warning is that we may realize how much our political environment is changing and becoming more violent.
“The conditions of extremism that define our political conversations have gotten worse and have gotten more extensive, to the point where we don't really appreciate just how badly things have changed,” Brian Hughes, the associate director of the Polarization and Extremism Innovation Lab at American University, said.
“I think people take it as a matter of course that violence is going to be a part of our political process,” he said. “Ten years ago, that would have been shocking to say.”
Following the assassination attempt on former President Trump’s life in Pennsylvania in July, the new acting director of the Secret Service told Congress he was embarrassed by the failings that day.
They’ve since changed Trump’s security and cooperation with local law enforcement.
We expect to learn more this week when a Congressional probe is released.
