The calls for national unity following a shooting at a Trump rally lasted less than a week.
Following the July 13 assassination attempt on former President Trump, President Biden gave prime-time remarks urging Americans to lower the temperature of political rhetoric.
Days after surviving the shooting, Trump delivered an address at the Republican National Convention in which he extended an olive branch to Americans who had not supported him and said the country must put its disagreements aside to reach its potential.
But after Biden ended his candidacy and Vice President Harris became Trump’s likely opponent, the discourse has returned to typically heated levels.
Trump has torn into Harris as a “lunatic,” “dumb as a rock,” and “crazy,” while some Republicans suggested her race and gender have played a role in her rise to the top of the party. Asked Thursday if the country could survive a Harris presidency, Trump claimed it could not.
“I was supposed to be nice. They say something happened to me when I got shot. I became nice,” Trump told supporters Wednesday in North Carolina, where he tore into Harris at a rally. “And when you’re dealing with these people, they’re very dangerous people, you can’t be too nice. So if you don’t mind, I’m not going to be nice. Is that OK?”
Democrats have also gone on offense, seeking to get under Trump’s skin by calling him weak, highlighting his litany of legal problems and warning of the dangers of a possible second Trump administration.
The resumed attacks reflect what is shaping up to be a brutal and personal presidential campaign, just as the last two involving Trump were. And it underscores just how deep the divides are across political lines in the U.S. even in the face of shocking and tragic events like the attempt on Trump’s life.
“It just reflects how polarized the country is right now, and that polarization is run through all the elected officials, candidates and the electorate,” said Grant Reeher, a professor of political science at Syracuse University.
“If we want to look for any sort of event in the past that would tell us this would happen, I would say go back to COVID,” Reeher added. “When COVID first started spreading in the U.S., one of the things that was said was it could be the cataclysmic event that helps bring the nation together. In fact, just the opposite happened. The whole discussion of COVID became politicized and polarized.”
The July 13 assassination attempt at a Trump rally in Butler, Pa., spurred talk among Trump and his allies about how the brush with death had changed him. Trump himself said he had ripped up his planned address at the GOP convention in favor of a more unifying speech.
In his address, Trump told the country, “As long as our energies are spent fighting each other, our destiny will remain out of reach. And that’s not acceptable.”
“Any disagreements have to be put aside, and go forward united as one people, one nation, pledging allegiance to one great, beautiful … American flag,” he said.
But as the contours of the presidential race changed, so did Trump’s tone.
Biden, who was trailing Trump across the board in the polls and was viewed as a weakened candidate, dropped out of the race and was effectively replaced by Harris, who quickly sparked a wave of enthusiasm among rejuvenated Democrats.
Trump, clearly frustrated by the shake-up, responded with a barrage of attacks. He called the move by Democrats “undemocratic” and equated it to a “coup.” He has bashed Harris as a “radical-left lunatic” and suggested she could not pass the bar exam.
Ohio state Sen. George Lang (R) took things a step further when speaking at a rally for Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), saying it would take “a civil war to save the country” if Republicans lose in November. Lang later said he regretted his remarks.
“Saying you’re going to be a unifier and be above it is something you say when you kind of feel like you’re coasting in front in the race, and now if you feel like you’ve got more of a scrap on your hands, that will change the attitude,” said Dave Hopkins, a professor of political science at Boston College, who noted Trump already tends to get upset about “perceived unfairness.”
Some Republicans, including Vance, were quick to blame Democrats in the wake of the assassination attempt and argue their constant claims that Trump was an existential threat to democracy helped fuel the violence that unfolded at the former president’s rally.
Democrats have returned to attacking Trump on the campaign trail, calling him and his policies extreme, highlighting his lengthy legal record and warning he would take the country “backward.”
Biden, in addressing the nation from the Oval Office after dropping out of the race, spoke about uniting his party in the upcoming election and the need to save democracy as his reason for withdrawing, without mentioning Trump by name.
Asked this week about claims that some of those criticisms are dangerous in the wake of the rally shooting, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre strongly implied that it was not just on Democrats to tone down their rhetoric.
“It takes … all of us to lower the temperature. All of us,” she said Thursday. “I hope you can read between the lines of what I mean by ‘all of us.’ It takes all of us to take that action and to lower the temperature.”