“When violence is the means, obviously politics has veered into a rather dangerous direction,” 10 News Political Analyst Ed Lynch said.
For the second time in two months, there’s been an attempt on former President Trump’s life.
“We certainly seem to be in a time of rising political violence,” Director for the Center of Peace Studies and Violence Prevention at Virginia Tech James Hawdon said.
Hawdon tells 10 News there’s been a sharp increase in violence over the past 10 to 20 years.
“Those of opposing sides rationalize actually harming their opponents. They feel less restraint about harming their opponents, less sympathy when their opponents are harmed,” Hawdon said.
One of the reasons for that? A growing political divide.
“They’re basically sorting themselves into tribes if you will, into rival political groups,” he said.
We sat down with 10 News political analyst Ed Lynch, who says attempts like this create a political ripple effect.
“For the next few days, politicians on both sides will talk about how important it is to ‘turn down the temperature.’ You’ll probably hear that phrase a good deal, and soften the rhetoric, but that’s not going to keep that’s not going to last,” Lynch said.
“To have a second one so close to the first one, what do you think that says about this election in general?” 10 News reporter Abbie Coleman asked.
“Well, it says we’re a really divided country. It says that there any number of people who believe that for one reason or another violence is the answer. Whether it’s to make one candidate win, or to make one candidate seem more sympathetic,” Lynch said.
Hawdon tells us there’s one thing in particular that accounts for the uptick: the internet.
“Do you think social media has really helped ramp up some of this violence?” Coleman asked.
“Just the way the internet works with the personalization of algorithms, you can quickly find yourself only talking to like-minded people. The stronger your opinions become and the more entrenched they become, because you’re not hearing opposing views,” he said.
Lynch tells us this attempt does take attention off of the debate last week - where he says Trump didn’t perform as well as he hoped.
He also tells us according to weekend polls, it’s given Trump a boost.