Just how a would-be assassin managed to wound Donald Trump and kill at least one spectator at a Pennsylvania rally Saturday evening is for the FBI and other government investigators to figure out, through what will likely be a long investigation.

But why such an attack happened to the former president and current GOP nominee in the 2024 presidential election is a question that can be considered more quickly. Less than an hour after the shooting, I tracked down University of Massachusetts, Lowell scholar Arie Perliger, who studies political violence and assassinations, and got him to agree to do an interview.

Perliger pointed to the sharp polarization afflicting American politics as a key part of the context in which the apparent assassination attempt happened.

If both sides are hammering into people again and again that losing an election is the end of the world,” says Perliger, “then it’s not a surprise that eventually people are willing to take the law into their hands and to engage in violence.”

Naomi Schalit

Senior Editor, Politics + Democracy

U.S. Secret Service agents help former President Donald Trump offstage during a rally on July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pa. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

‘One inch from a potential civil war’ – near miss in Trump shooting is also a close call for American democracy

Arie Perliger, UMass Lowell

A scholar of political assassinations says the US just narrowly avoided plunging into wholesale violence and potential civil war when Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt.