A Worrying Situation

While it is true that the language of political violence is more frequent in the far right circles that today predominate in Trump’s party, groups or people alleged to be leftist have also aired their irritation with threats.

The U.S. is experiencing concern about the possibilities of political violence and the fear that it will go beyond what today appear to be threats to legislators. It is an unpleasant prelude to the Nov. 8 elections and a consideration that seems to be increasingly present in the political life of that country.

It is true that the American political-ideological debate traditionally incorporates a language of contained violence, but the polarization of recent years has not been seen in almost a century. Or at least it had not reached the current extremes.

In fact, this ideological extremism has been the cloak for terrorist acts such as the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, or the racially and xenophobically motivated shootings that Republicans seem to condone more often than not.

This new ideological extremism led to a crowd of supporters of the now former President Donald Trump storming the Capitol building in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, in what was an unusual event and is now qualified as an attempted coup because its goal was to prevent Trump’s electoral defeat from being certified.

Now, a number of lawmakers are facing threats of violence, especially centrists in a Republican Party increasingly dominated by the right but also liberal Democrats, especially representatives of ethnic minorities.

But you can’t talk about innocents. While it is true that the language of political violence is more frequent in the far right circles that today predominate in the Trump party, groups or people alleged to be leftist have also aired their irritation with threats.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if a senator or a House member were killed,” Susan Collins, a Republican senator from Maine, told The New York Times. Collins, who is serving her fifth term, is considered a centrist, even liberal on social issues, and that makes her a target of the wave of threats. For her, “what started with abusive phone calls is now translating into active threats of violence and real violence.”

According to the newspaper, in the five years following the election of President Trump in 2016, “following a campaign featuring a remarkable level of violent language,” the number of recorded threats against members of Congress increased more than tenfold, to 9,625 in 2021.

The Capitol Police opened 1,820 cases, and the number of threats is expected to increase as the election approaches. The situation is all the more worrying because in recent years armed extremist groups have engaged in greater public participation, especially linked to racist ideologies, and there has been an increase in separatist messages.