A shooting attempt on Donald Trump's life adds to concerns over what international organizations call a decline in U.S. democratic institutions – and worries about the spread of political violence in democracies globally.
U.S. President Joe Biden used an Oval Office address on Sunday to urge Americans to “lower the temperature in our politics" as the heated presidential election gears up for the November election.
“The political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated. It’s time to cool it down,” he said. "Disagreement is inevitable in American democracy. It’s part of human nature. But politics must never be a literal battlefield and, God forbid, a killing field."
Freedom House interim president Nicole Bibbins Sedaca called the assassination attempt "a grim and shocking blow to the American democratic process. While we are relieved that former president Trump was not more seriously injured, we are saddened by the loss of life and the fear experienced by all those participating in the political rally."
“The very purpose of a democracy is to give citizens a peaceful vehicle to navigate differences and resolve disagreements peacefully, through open debate, free and fair elections, and the rule of law," she said. "Political violence is completely unacceptable in any context, and this assassination attempt should be condemned by all Americans in the strongest terms."
The FBI said it is investigating the Saturday night shooting at a campaign rally for former president Trump as an assassination attempt. Trump, who said the bullet "pierced the upper part" of his right ear, is set to become the Republican presidential nominee later this week.
The suspected gunman, a 20-year-old Pennsylvania man with an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle, was shot dead and bomb-making material was later found in his vehicle and at his home, authorities said. One person at the rally was killed; two others were injured.
"There is absolutely no place for political violence in our democracy," said former president Barack Obama.
"Although we don’t yet know exactly what happened," he said, "we should all be relieved that former president Trump wasn’t seriously hurt, and use this moment to recommit ourselves to civility and respect in our politics."
Despite Biden's attempts to calm the waters, some of Trump's Republican right-wing supporters blamed Biden's Democratic supporters for the assassination attempt. U.S. Senator Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina, said the attack was "aided and abetted by the radical left and corporate media incessantly calling Trump a threat to democracy, fascists, or worse."
Trump's close brush with death and his fist-pumping response as his security team whisked him from the rally podium has the potential to elevate him in the eyes of his supporters to near-martyrdom and redefine the already bruising U.S. presidential race.
But it's Trump who "normalized violence and incited insurrection" on Jan. 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol, says the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "The insurrection on January 6th wouldn’t have happened without one key player — Donald Trump. And it wouldn’t have happened without his repeated calls for violence that started years before, which created an increasingly dangerous feedback loop of violent rhetoric and violent action which exploded at the Capitol on January 6th."
'Long unresolved problems'
French President Emmanuel Macron said his nation "shares the shock and indignation of the American people" and called the Trump shooting “a tragedy for our democracies."
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni described it as "a warning to everyone, regardless of political affiliation, to restore dignity and honor to politics, against all forms of hatred and violence, and for the good of our democracies.”
Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, whose predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, was stabbed at a campaign rally, said the Trump shooting was “unacceptable” and that "all defenders of democracy and dialogue in politics" should strongly condemn it.
And Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, whose predecessor, Shinzo Abe, was shot and killed at a campaign event, urged citizens everywhere to “stand firm against any form of violence that challenges democracy."
As a "high-performing democracy" founded 248 years ago, the United States has had robust protections for its rule of law and fundamental rights, says Sweden's International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, or IDEA.
But in the past five years, it says, the U.S. had "significant declines" in civil liberties, social rights and equality, judicial independence and effective lawmaking; over the past decade, its predictable enforcement lapsed. It also pointed to Trump's presidential abuses of power.
"These declines can be traced to long unresolved problems," IDEA says in its Global State of Democracy Initiative, "including severe socioeconomic inequality and racial injustice and a weakened legislature that has struggled to check executive action, especially between 2016 and 2020."
In May, IDEA gave the U.S. improved marks for rule of law due to a New York jury's finding that Trump was guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a hush money case over a sex scandal.
The U.S. benefits from a vibrant political system, strong rule-of-law tradition, robust freedoms of expression and religious belief, and a wide array of other civil liberties, says Washington-based Freedom House, but "in recent years its democratic institutions have suffered erosion."
Sedaca, the Freedom House interim president, said in response to the Trump shooting that "the vast majority of Americans hold democratic values as sacrosanct and rightly take pride in them as a core feature of their national identity. Yet it cannot be ignored that politicians, election officials, and others have faced a disturbing increase in politicized threats and violence in recent years."
Earlier this month, Sedaca warned that the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. United States also has concerning implications for the U.S. rule of law and democratic freedoms.
The ruling undermines the basic democratic principle that no one is above the law, according to Sedaca, and removes accountability for otherwise criminal behavior if a president’s actions are deemed to be exercises of core constitutional powers.
"Its strong protections for presidents and former presidents," she says, "could ultimately come at the expense of ordinary citizens, political opponents, independent institutions, and other possible victims of an abusive executive."
This story has been updated with additional details.
