The shooting at a rally for Donald Trump this weekend that killed a rallygoer and injured the former president has highlighted a dynamic that’s become all too familiar in the United States -- political polarization.
Last year, Pew Research found Republicans and Democrats were more divided than at any point in the past two decades.
The day after the apparent assassination attempt, President Joe Biden urged unity from the Oval Office Sunday evening.
“There is no place in America for this kind of violence,” he said. “We can’t allow this violence to be normalized. You know the political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated. It’s time to cool it down.”
Former First Lady Melania Trump took to social media to urge people to remember that political figures are people first.
“The core facets of my husband’s life– his human side– were buried below the political machine,” she said in a statement posted to X.
She also urged unity, writing, “Dawn is here again. Let us reunite. Now.”
But according to Dr. Nevena Trajkov, who is the Department Chair of Political Science at Jacksonville University, bringing unity might be easier said than done.
“The message of unity is necessary, particularly for our country, but it’s going to be really difficult to bring society together,” Trajkov said.
She views social media as a major contributor to political division.
“We’re angry all the time, because that’s all you really see in social media is just rage...and they give you permission to be enraged, and then that division just exacerbates itself,” Trajkov said.
Following the shooting, the Biden campaign said it would halt TV advertising, while the former president said he re-wrote his RNC acceptance speech to focus on calling for unity rather than going on offense.
But Trajkov stated she thinks the contentious race won’t be cooled for long.
“I think that in a few weeks, everything will return to status quo, unfortunately,” Trajkov said.
She urges voters to remember that while divisions run deep, there is still middle ground.
“A third of the electorate rejects both parties in terms of, ‘hey, I see myself in that camp’...And again, these are more policy driven voters, not emotional voters. So that is a good thing when we think about moving forward in November and thinking about the outcome of this election,” Trajkov said.
On Truth Social this morning, former President Trump made a post referencing moving the country forward in uniting after the horrific events of Saturday, while also arguing five civil and criminal cases against him should be thrown out, calling them an election interference conspiracy; however, most of the cases he referenced are not being brought by the federal government.