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President Biden has blamed former President Donald Trump and his followers for the growing wave of political violence in the U.S., but analysts say the surge in threats and attacks is a bipartisan phenomenon.
In a series of speeches to kick off the campaign year, Mr. Biden said Mr. Trump and his supporters “embrace political violence and laugh about it.”
Those who study the issue say both sides of America’s increasingly hostile politics have plenty of culpability.
“It’s not all about Trump. There are forces on the left that are just as intemperate as Trump,” said Benjamin Ginsberg, who researches political violence at Johns Hopkins University. “Trump bears some of the blame, but there are plenty of Democratic politicians and operatives who are intemperate and prone to violence.”
He pointed to the violent rhetoric spewed by Rep. Maxine Waters, California Democrat.
“Maxine Waters told Democrats to ‘get in the face’ of Republicans. It is a prelude to shooting at them,” he said.
As 2023 came to a close, at least three Republican members of Congress said they were victims of “swatting,” in which someone falsely reported a shooting, prompting a heavily armed police SWAT team to show up at a target’s home. The prank has potentially deadly consequences.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Republican and Trump loyalist, said her home and both of her daughters’ homes were swatted.
In the final week of 2023, a New Hampshire man was charged with threatening the lives of Republican presidential candidates Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Christie. The defendant, Tyler Anderson, threatened to kill Mr. Christie by carrying out a “mass shooting” at a campaign event and sent a series of text messages threatening to “impale” and “disembowel” Mr. Ramaswamy.
Politicians on the left are being targeted as well.
In recent weeks, public officials in Maine and Colorado received death threats after barring Mr. Trump from their states’ primary ballots.
An Arizona man was accused of posting on a pro-Trump message board that he “wanted to execute every single FBI agent and employee, including the maintenance staff.”
A Florida man was accused of leaving voicemails threatening to kill Rep. Eric Swalwell, California Democrat. A Montana man pleaded guilty to threatening to “personally kill Joe Biden.”
“The threats are being directed at both parties,” said Kathleen Keneally, head of threat analysis and prevention at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. “This is truly becoming a nonpartisan issue regardless of where you sit on the political aisle. If you are a public official, you are going to be a target.”
Sheehan Kane, a researcher at the University of Maryland, denies that the violence is bipartisan. Her research found that 125 of the extremists in the database at Maryland’s Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism program have been linked to the QAnon conspiracy theories, such as the claim that Mr. Trump is facing down a shadowy cabal of Democratic pedophiles.
“From 2019-2021, extremists who committed ideologically motivated crimes in the United States were linked to the QAnon conspiracy theory more than any other extremist group or movement,” she said.
Her research identified at least 20 cases in 2022 of extremists carrying out ideologically motivated crimes in 2020.
A startling poll released in October found that 1 in 4 Americans believe political violence may be justified to “save” the country. The poll by the nonprofit Public Religion Research Institute found that 23% of Americans agree that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”
The poll found that 33% of Republicans, 22% of independents and 13% of Democrats believe “patriots” may have to resort to violence.
Those percentages have increased across the board since 2021, when 28% of Republicans, 13% of independents and 7% of Democrats believed violence was necessary.
“It won’t just be Republicans in 2024. Plenty of Democrats will get hysterical over the idea of a Trump victory, and some are prepared to engage in violence. On the GOP side, we’ve already seen they are capable of reacting violently,” Mr. Ginsberg said. “I think we are going to have serious bloodshed in 2024.”
Last year, at least 250 people were criminally charged in connection with political violence, according to Justice Department data. Roughly 40 people were killed in incidents linked to politics, according to a separate study by Reuters.
Among the reports were a Florida man’s fatal stabbing of his pro-Trump boss, a North Dakota man running over a teenager for allegedly belonging to a “Republican extremist group,” and an Ohio man’s killing of his neighbor because he “thought he was a Democrat,” according to the victim’s widow.
Although analysts agree political violence is rising, no broad solution is apparent. The approaching presidential election, Mr. Trump’s indictments, and Mr. Biden’s and Mr. Trump’s accusations that the other is a threat to democracy have transformed America into a political tinderbox. The election year is just getting started.
“There is a combination of factors influencing this threat environment,” Ms. Keneally said. “Law enforcement and the Justice Department don’t have enough resources, and there are so many threats to public officials and election workers that it requires a lot of resources in manpower. The current trajectory is that the volatile threat environment is going to continue.”
Mr. Ginsberg said increased law enforcement is one solution, but he also called on Americans to avoid getting their news only from sites with political slants. He said lawmakers must be more willing to compromise and find bipartisan solutions.
On Friday, Mr. Biden deemed his predecessor “despicable” and a threat to America.
Mr. Trump responded by accusing Mr. Biden of being the “destroyer of democracy” who weaponized his Justice Department to jail political opponents.
Ms. Keneally said such rhetoric is the root of the problem.
“We are becoming more divided than ever, and this rhetoric trickles down from their campaigns,” she said.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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