According to a report by Reuters, the number of political incidents in the United States has been on the rise since 2016 and has been steadily increasing. Experts warn that the political atmosphere leading up to the 2024 election is highly volatile, especially with the recent surge in violent attacks, marking the highest increase in political violence events in the United States since the 1970s.
From 2021 to present, there have been at least 300 political violence incidents in the United States, with 93 incidents in 2021, 79 incidents in 2022, 76 incidents in 2023, and at least 51 incidents so far this year. This is the largest and longest-lasting wave of political violence events since the 1970s.
The confirmed 300 political violence incidents reported by Reuters were selected from thousands of records of violent crimes from 2021 to present. Most of this data was initially collected by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), a global violence tracking project operated by a non-partisan research group in Wisconsin. Journalists obtained news databases, court documents, and police reports through public records requests to confirm more cases.
Some of these violent events have been widely reported, with the most notable being two attempted assassinations against Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate. In one of the attempts at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania in July, one attendee was shot and killed, and the assailant was also shot dead. Other political events include three shooting incidents at the Democratic campaign office of Harriet Warner in Arizona, with no casualties reported.
The most recent high-profile political violence incident was the first attempted assassination against Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13th. Trump was attacked, hit in the ear by a bullet, and the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was shot dead on the spot by a sniper. Federal investigators believe the shooter had no definitive ideology.
On the day of the assassination attempt, Joshua Kemppainen, a vocal Trump critic from northern Michigan, expressed his anger in private chats on the Discord messaging app with his friends. Kemppainen wrote on a photo of Trump with blood coming out of his ear, “Aim better, idiot!” One member of the chat group forwarded this message to Reuters.
Eight days after the assassination attempt, 22-year-old unemployed youth Kemppainen went on a rampage in Hancock Town where he lived, a small town with a population of 4,500 that largely supported Trump in the 2020 election.
Police Chief Tami Sleeman of Hancock Town said in an interview that on July 21st, when President Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race and endorsed Harriet Warner, Kemppainen drove an SUV through the streets and attacked Trump supporters.
Based on police records, Kemppainen’s accomplices, chat logs provided by the police, and videos posted by Kemppainen on Discord, Reuters pieced together the sequence of events:
Kemppainen vandalized a pickup truck with Trump stickers, deflated the tires, ripped off the side mirror, and smashed the windows. He also damaged a truck with stickers supporting the police. He posted a video of the assault on Discord, commenting, “I’ve done my best,” and then tore down Trump campaign signs in a yard and threw them into the street.
When 81-year-old bystander Carl Nelson tried to put the signs back, Kemppainen ran over him with the SUV and fled the scene, leaving the Vietnam War veteran hospitalized.
The day after, Kemppainen called the Hancock police and said, “I’m calling to confess to the crime, I would appreciate it if you could send someone to pick me up.”
Chief Sleeman stated that the police, upon hearing a voicemail two hours later, were concerned about the caller’s unstable emotions and sent six officers. The police report indicated that when they arrived, Kemppainen had already committed suicide with an assault rifle. The report also mentioned that his father revealed Kemppainen was taking antidepressants and had been diagnosed with autism. In an interview, a family member confirmed that Kemppainen had been struggling with mental health issues.
Nelson, the victim of Kemppainen’s attack, told Reuters that he suffered injuries to his knee and upper body, stayed in the hospital for a few days, and expressed shock at the events in their once quiet area. He added that he had decided to vote for Trump.
On September 15th, Trump survived a second assassination attempt, drawing attention once again to the risks of political violence in this year’s election. Suspect Ryan Wesley Routh was seen waiting outside Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach for hours with a assault rifle, before a special agent discovered him hiding in the bushes and fired at him. Routh fled but was quickly apprehended.
In 2020, Routh expressed support for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders on X, mocking Biden as “Sleepy Joe.” Earlier this year, he tweeted with a Biden tag, saying, “Your campaign should be called KADAF (Keep America Democratic And Free); Trump should be called MASA (Make Americans Slaves Again); democracy depends on votes, we cannot lose.”
Eleven days later, at a gathering in York, a city in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, local councilman Alan Vandersloot and about twelve supporters stood with Warner’s campaign signs. York, with a population of nearly 45,000 people, is the county seat of York County, which widely supported Trump in 2020.
At the conclusion of the gathering, a man grabbed Vandersloot from behind, causing him to fall to the sidewalk with a two-inch long gash on his forehead. Two witnesses claimed that the assailant, Robert Trotta, repeatedly struck the councilman before fleeing the scene.
When another attendee, Dan Almoney, confronted Trotta, he referred to him as a “black supporter.” Almoney believed Trotta was making insinuations about Warner and her supporters. Trotta, Vandersloot, and Almoney are all white.
Court records show that Trotta, unable to post bail, has not yet defended against the assault and harassment charges. His lawyer declined to comment. According to state records, Trotta is a registered Republican. His social media posts (last updated in 2020) supported Trump and criticized the Democratic Party.
Captain Daniel Lentz, a spokesman for the New York City Police Department, stated that he did not believe Trotta’s attack was motivated by “political reasons,” as Trotta had previously admitted to committing two harassment charges. However, testimonies from Vandersloot and Almoney indicated they believed the attack was politically motivated.
On September 26th, a Michigan man was arrested for assaulting a US Postal Service worker who was delivering Warner’s election mail to his home at the time. According to police records and a statement from the Oakland County prosecutor, 61-year-old Russell Valleau approached the postal worker on a bicycle and shouted that he did not want that “black bitch” in his mailbox.
The prosecutor’s statement and records from the Farmington Hills Police Department revealed that as the black postal worker stepped back, Valleau charged at her with a knife, shouting racial slurs. She sprayed him with dog repellent, causing him to retreat.
A recording obtained through a records request captured her calling the police minutes later, saying, “A man just ran at me with a knife trying to stab me, I sprayed him with dog repellent.”
Police found Valleau lying in a nearby yard, apparently drunk and affected by chemical repellent. He pleaded not guilty to charges of assault, battery, and ethnic intimidation.
In another incident this summer, as reported by the Pasquotank County Sheriff’s Office, four white men drove a pickup truck to a rural residence on the North Carolina coast, asking three black teenagers in the yard if they “liked Donald Trump.” When the teenagers replied they did not, the men opened fire with BB guns, hitting one in the leg and another in the buttocks. The gunfire shattered windows in the house, shed, and a car in the driveway. The truck then drove off.
Authorities are investigating this incident as an assault using a deadly weapon, with no suspects identified yet. The children sustained minor injuries but refused medical treatment.
The father of the children, Christian Gilyard, expressed shock over the escalating political tensions since the 2020 election and never expected such incidents in his community. He remarked, “It’s shocking that something like this would happen here.”
Experts on political extremism warn that the heightened tensions leading up to the 2024 presidential election have created a highly turbulent situation.
Nealin Parker, head of the non-profit organization Common Ground USA, stated that Americans have started to view violence as a “part of political operations,” and in the current climate of mistrust, “violent incidents could escalate into larger issues.”
Robert Pape, a professor at the University of Chicago specializing in political violence, expressed concerns about potential violence in key states after the election, where the margin of victory could be only a few thousand votes. He likened the situation to “wildfire season,” with “dry kindling everywhere,” and the possibility of “lightning strikes.”
(Information in this article was based on reports by Reuters)