Trump attack could influence undecided US voters, says analyst

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It will be difficult to reverse the “corrosive” political violence in US politics following the assassination of Donald Trump at a campaign rally, a US-European political analyst told Euronews.

Jackson Janes, senior researcher at the German Marshall Fund think tank in Washington, said that while he was not sure whether the attack on the likely Republican nominee would have a significant impact on the U.S. presidential election in November, it could still change the minds of undecided voters.

Janes said the attack is expected to increase the fervor of Republican voters who support Trump and will not sway entrenched Democrats. But it raises questions about the opinions of those “in the middle of the two armies” and how they will respond.

“I think a lot of that will have to do with the way leadership handles the event,” Janes said.

Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are considered important swing states In the upcoming presidential election, hundreds of thousands of state voters will be the deciding factor in who will win in November.

Blame-shifting rhetoric could influence undecided voters

Janes said the opinions of undecided voters will be shaped by how leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties respond to the assassination and whether they engage in a “blame game” on the political fringe.

“This is an immediate opportunity for people to say that both sides have contributed to this kind of heated polarization,” he said.

“What we really need now is respect for the fact that there was this violent attack on Donald Trump and it needs to be recognized for what it was and I think (US President Joe) Biden did that in his statement.

“The question will be, as Trump recently said in one of his social media posts on Truth United, how this will play out in the coming days and whether fringe groups in both parties could use this to amplify the comments even further.”

Biden condemned the attack, calling it “sick” and saying “there is no place for this kind of violence in America.”

Nevertheless, many Republicans were quick to blame Biden and his allies for the violence, arguing that continued attacks on Trump, who is seen as a threat to democracy, had created a toxic climate.

Trump, who was slightly injured by a shot to the ear at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, posted on the social media platform Truth Social that he was fine and that it was “more important than ever” that the US be united.

Trump added that he looked forward to “speaking to our great nation this week from Wisconsin.”

The likely nominee is expected to attend the Republican National Convention on July 15 in Milwaukee, the capital of Wisconsin.

Although the event is essentially about the official nomination of a presidential candidate by members of the Republican Party, Janes predicts that the focus will be heavily on emotions – but that a new challenge will arise for us: how to lower the “temperature” of those emotions.

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“Sharp” political violence and political talk

Although Trump survived, Janes fears that this politically motivated attack could be the first of many in the next decade if nothing changes in the United States.

The expert compared the current atmosphere in the United States with the unrest of the 1960s, which was marked by the assassinations of political leaders John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy, as well as social leaders Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

“This dynamic of political turmoil, this acidity, this temperature that we have – when you combine that with the same willingness of people to use weapons … then you want to create trouble,” he said.

“I would like to think we have come this far, but political violence and political conversations have become much more corrosive. We have to change that.”

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International leaders from across the political spectrum condemned the attackin which one demonstrator died and two were injured.

US secret service agents shot dead 20-year-old gunman Thomas Crooks shortly after he shot Trump.