Americans brace for political violence ahead of presidential election

Kristen King lost the "love of her life" when her husband was killed by their neighbour Austin Combs at their home in Ohio in 2022. Combs’ grievance? He believed his victim, Anthony King, was a Democrat.

King died on Nov. 5, 2022. His case marks one of 213 instances of political violence since Jan. 6, 2021 – when supporters of former United States President Donald Trump violently attacked US Congress.

Armed with blades and other weapons, more than 1,000 people, spurred on by conspiracy theories and Trump's own words, stormed the Capitol building.

Since then, incidents of political violence across the US have been rising. According to Katie Gaddini, an associate sociology professor at University College London, Jan. 6 "represented a literal and symbolic breach of democracy in the country."

Speaking to TRT World, Gaddini, also a visiting fellow at Stanford University, added, "On the one hand, this opened many Americans' eyes to just how centralised and organised so-called 'fringe' movements on the right actually are.

"On the other hand, the breach showed others that resisting dominant political forces in the country can be done somewhat successfully at the level of physical violence."

Since January 6, there have been 39 deaths from political violence in the US. There have also been countless assaults, including an attack on the husband of Nancy Pelosi in October 2022.

Pelosi, a career Democrat, served as Speaker of the House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011 and again from 2019 to 2023. Because of identity politics and allegations of "government corruption," far-right groups who supported Trump considered her to be a legitimate target.

When the attacker entered her home in San Francisco, he said he intended to hold her hostage and break her kneecaps. Instead, husband Paul, aged 82 at the time, was hit over the head with a hammer, fracturing his skull.

Other attacks have taken the form of threats. Just last year, a day after Christmas, Rusty Bowers would return to his home in Arizona to find it surrounded by police.

An earlier hoax call had alerted Bowers and the police that there was a pipe bomb inside his home and that a woman had also been murdered there. Both allegations were untrue.

Bowers had been a former speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives and was known to have played a role in resisting efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

What happened to Bowers is just one of the many instances of violent threats that government officials faced in the run-up to the November 2020 presidential election, peaking just before it and culminating in January 6.

Speaking to TRT World, Heath Brown, a public policy professor at City University of New York (CUNY), said that the US has had a "long history of peaceful transfers of power" when it comes to presidential transitions.

But Jan. 6 upended that tradition, added Brown, the author of forthcoming book Roadblocked: Joe Biden's Rocky Transition to the Presidency.

"Many fear something will happen like that siege on the capitol again this time. In 2020, the institutions held strong, including those thousand plus volunteers helping Joe Biden and Kamala Harris get ready for Day 1," he said.

A poll conducted at the end of last year found that 83 percent of Americans were concerned about political violence in their country. Although the threats come from across the political spectrum.

According to Gaddini, "These are Americans who have grown deeply dissatisfied with the status-quo in US politics and have migrated farther and farther to the right since 2015. They are feeling under threat and literally under siege, which instigates a violent reaction."

It was this crowd, the ones who felt "under threat and under siege," who were easy to rile up and attack the Capitol building, she added.

Misinformation also plays a role.

Many who embrace violence believe in conspiracies that were once on the fringes, but made more popular by politicians like Trump. Take QAnon, a concept that a Satan-worshiping, child sex trafficking cabal is operating in Hollywood and within the Democratic party. Belief in this theory makes attacking these groups more legitimate.

Further fueling the fire are claims of "electoral fraud" and an encouragement to keep "fighting" to reclaim the country by Trump.

This rhetoric has appealed to far-right groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers – right wing groups made up of mainly white men who feel under cultural and demographic threat. Ahead of January 6, social media posts by members of these groups encouraged violent action.

Trump has played naïve when it comes to the Capitol attack, claiming he hadn’t done anything wrong. Though the House of Representatives held impeachment hearings, he was not convicted by the Senate.

Now, four years later he’s back as a strong contender for this year’s presidential elections, with the same rhetoric he was accused of stoking bubbling up once more.

In November, letters containing fentanyl, a powerful opioid, were sent to several election offices. Another wave of hoax bomb threats were sent to officials who preside over state elections, signaling a potentially threatening presidential election year ahead.

Notably, such violence happens throughout the world, Gaddini said. "I was recently in Guatemala where the country was beset by protests, blockades, and small-scale violence in October with the election of Arevalo. Ultimately, I don't think 2024 will result in the scale of violence or revolt we saw in 2021. But let's see," she added.

How can this time be different?

According to experts, people are more likely to engage in political violence when they feel they have permission from their political representatives to do so.

Trump was slow to discourage violence on Jan. 6, instead choosing to watch the scene unfold over several hours, before suggesting people "go home."

But if he had instead strongly condemned the violence, it would never have escalated in the way that it did, analysts said.

After the former president attended his hearing on presidential immunity at the US Court of Appeals earlier this month, he was asked by members of the press whether he would discourage violence ahead of the upcoming elections.

He chose to ignore it, instead telling reporters, "I did absolutely nothing wrong, working for the country, and I worked very hard on voter fraud."

Following that incident, former GOP Congressman Joe Walsh said on X, "Trump has always wanted there to be violence committed in his defense. He wanted violence on January 6th, and he’ll want violence again this year."

But Heath Brown told TRT World that there is plenty that can still be done to change the tone of this year's election and reduce the fears and reality of possible violence.

“For one, local elected officials can convene community meetings to talk about the principles of peaceful elections. School groups can re-double civics education over the next year to make sure kids know and understand the importance of non-violence and respect for the results of free and fair elections. The media can also help by calling out threats of violence for what they are.”

He added, "political violence is not inevitable. Civil society in the US is overwhelmingly peaceful, non-violent, and opposed to physical conflict. It is that dominant thread in US society that needs to lead over the next year to promote the peaceful norms most Americans accept as central to their patriotism and belief in the constitution.”