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On Sunday, there was an apparent attempt on Donald Trump’s life. On Monday, as NBC News noted, his political operation thought it’d be a good idea to tell the public that Kamala Harris and Democrats represent a “party of violence.”
The [social media] posts are similar to ones made from the same account after the first attempted assassination in July, although those were posted days after that incident. One post today said, “Kamala Harris has consistently called President Trump a ‘dictator’ and ‘a threat to democracy.’ Make no mistake: it’s Kamala and the Democrats who are the party of violence.”
The obvious problem with such an argument is that the Democratic nominee has never endorsed political violence. Yes, Harris has referenced Trump’s “dictator” rhetoric, but she was only quoting him, which I’m pretty sure is still allowed. And, yes, Harris has also pointed to the GOP nominee as a threat to democracy, but that’s only because he keeps taking overt steps to threaten democracy.
But the less obvious problem matters, too — because if the folks on Team Trump really want to have a debate over which party deserves to be seen as the “party of violence,” they might be disappointed by where this conversation ends up.
Let’s take a stroll down memory lane.
In Trump’s first year in office, Sarah Huckabee Sanders insisted that he had never “promoted or encouraged violence.” Even at the time, it was a difficult line to take seriously.
A Washington Post analysis noted soon after that the claim was “laughable,” adding: “Even if you don’t believe Trump has technically incited violence (which he has been sued for), he clearly nodded toward violence at his campaign rallies. Sometimes it was veiled; other times it was unmistakable. Sometimes he was talking about self-defense, but it was clear he was advocating for a ‘form of violence.’”
Even Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, explained in 2016 that Trump had “a consistent pattern of inciting violence.”
But after Trump’s 2020 defeat, the problem took a turn for the worse. Indeed, after summoning his followers on Jan. 6, the outgoing president didn’t just lie to his supporters about the election results, he also told his mob, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” An insurrectionist riot soon followed.
As the former president’s legal troubles intensified last year, so too did his rhetoric about potential violence. In February 2023, for example, Trump promoted an online message from a supporter who threatened to “physically fight” for him. The same missive concluded with a “locked and loaded” warning.
A month later, Trump publicly derided calls for “peace,” while suggesting that his indictment would raise the prospect of “death [and] destruction” that “could be catastrophic for our Country.”
The same week, an NBC News reporter asked the former president whether he believed political violence would be “justifiable.” Trump responded, “Well, I will say this. No, I don’t like violence, and I’m not for violence at all. But a lot of people are upset, and you know, they rigged an election, they stole an election, they spied on my campaign. They did many bad things.”
As a rule, when someone says, “I’m not for violence at all, but ...” there’s a rather obvious problem. As part of an analysis of his incendiary rhetoric, a Washington Post report added, “There is now no denying that such language, even if you somehow regard Trump’s intentions as innocent, can lead to a very dark place.”
This year has offered more of the same. In April, for example, Trump said in an interview with Time magazine that he doesn’t think there will be political violence around the 2024 election because he believes he’ll win — but that it “always depends on the fairness of an election.”
Asked specifically about the possibility of post-election violence, the Republican told Time, “[I]f we don’t win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election.”
Or put another way, if Trump, driven by his ridiculous and evidence-free assumptions, decides that he doesn’t believe the election was “fair,” he’s not prepared to rule out the possibility of political violence.
More recently, the GOP candidate decided to make jokes about a violent attack against Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s husband.
It’s against this backdrop that the Trump campaign seriously expects people to believe that Democrats are the “party of violence,” which is among the most ridiculous claims Team Trump has ever made.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.