So 2024 could be the new 1968, a watershed political year characterized by malefactors attacking iconic political leaders.
That’s the fear of a full 67% of Americans polled in the wake of a sniper attack on former President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pa., Saturday evening.
Two out of every three of the 4,339 Americans YouGov surveyed believe political violence is more likely — suggesting the shots fired at the presumptive GOP presidential nominee in his last campaign stop before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee are a preamble to further violence.
Only 8% of respondents think it’s less likely we see more attacks on political leaders, while 10% expect no change and 14% can’t guess.
What’s telling is that partisans — both Republican and Democrat — are more likely to think more violence is coming: 70% of GOP registrants and 69% of Democrats expect Trump may have been the first target but won’t be the last.
In 1968, America was rocked by the April assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., who was in Memphis supporting striking sanitation workers, followed by the June slaying of Robert F. Kennedy Sr.
Those killings came just five years after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and four years before an attempt on the life of Democratic presidential candidate George Wallace by a gunman who just wanted fame, a shooting that left the Alabama governor in a wheelchair.
While Trump mercifully was only wounded and appears to be on the road to full recovery, another rally attendee was killed by sniper Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old from Bethel Park, Pa., whom not much is known, beyond his Republican registration and a small-dollar January 2021 donation to a Democratic political fund.
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Beyond expecting more political violence in the country, 82% of poll respondents agree that political violence has already been a persistent issue — with 50% thinking it’s a “very big” problem and 32% saying it’s “somewhat” of an issue. Partisans drive the numbers here again, with 87% of Republicans and 84% of Democrats sounding the alarm, compared with 76% of independents.
In contrast, only 10% of total respondents diminish the issue, with 8% not sure what they think.
Political scrutiny is on the US Secret Service: Republicans Rick Scott and Josh Hawley are calling for Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearings. Scott wants the Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security taken to task, while Hawley demands a full, public investigation of the assassination attempt and the “failure to protect the former president.”
Pollsters asked the public how confident they are in the Secret Service’s ability to “protect presidential candidates from harm” in the wake of the attempt on the former president’s life, and only one in five respondents said he or she is “very confident.” An additional 45% are “somewhat confident.”
Follow The Post’s latest stories on the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump:
- Trump says he ‘felt the bullet ripping through my skin’ in first statement since assassination attempt
- Donald Trump urges the nation to not let ‘evil win’ and ‘fear not’ after shooting
- Gunman behind attempted assassination on Trump had head blown off by Secret Service, sources say; rally-goer killed
- Trump shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks was loner ‘relentlessly’ bullied in high school: classmate
- How Trump’s split-second head turn may have saved his life from assassin’s bullet
- Ex-volunteer fire chief Corey Comperatore ID’d as Trump sniper victim, shielded his daughter from assassin’s bullets
- Search for Trump shooter’s motive delayed by explosives found in home and car: sources
Keep up to date on updates with the Post’s live blog on the assassination attempt on Trump
And 70% of Democrats, 65% of Republicans, and just 61% of independents have at least some confidence in the force charged with the protection of past and present presidents.
But 29% of Republicans say they are either “not very confident” or “not at all confident.”
That number likely will rise if legislative-branch investigations reveal what went wrong to allow a man not old enough to drink to climb onto a roof unabated and take multiple shots into a crowd, wounding a national political leader and two supporters and taking another man’s innocent life.
With calls increasing to boost Secret Service protection for the major presidential candidates and to finally provide some for Robert Kennedy Jr., whose uncle and father were slain decades ago for political reasons, one consequence of Saturday’s event may be that security gaps left open for too long may finally be addressed.
But that offers little comfort to those harmed by the failures of those guarding the president that fateful day in Butler, Pa.