The rhetoric of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert led to the shooting of Trump, according to experts

Representatives Lauren Boebert (l.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene Photo: Shutterstock

The extremist rhetoric of Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO) helped “normalize violence” that led to the assassination of former President Donald Trump this weekend, according to an expert on political violence.

“The MAGA faction has unleashed a lot of violence against moderate Republicans,” Rachel Kleinfeld, an expert on political violence and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said recently. Politico“An assassination attempt on a presidential candidate was almost only a matter of time.”

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“Sadly, I’m not surprised – given that there has actually been a tenfold increase in threats against members of Congress, an increase in violence and threats against everyone from school board candidates to state legislators, and a doubling of serious threats against judges,” Kleinfeld added.

Both Greene and Boebert have run campaign ads containing violent rhetoric.

In a January 3, 2021, ad, Boebert said she would “carry my Glock to Congress.” In a September 2020 Facebook post, Greene shared a picture of herself holding a gun next to a picture of the four Democratic congresswomen of color who made up the House progressive group known as “The Squad.”

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Facebook removed Greene’s post for violating its policy against threats of violence after Squad member Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) wrote: “Posting a photo of an assault rifle next to the faces of three women of color is not advertising. It is hate speech. There are already death threats in response to this post.”

Just yesterday, Greene wrote in a Truth Social post: “We are in a battle between GOOD and EVIL. The Democrats are the party of pedophiles, the murder of innocent unborn children, violence, and bloody, senseless, endless wars.”

“They want to lock up their political opponents and terrorize innocent Americans who would tell the truth,” she continued. “The Democratic Party is just plain evil, and yesterday they tried to assassinate President Trump.”

Kleinfeld said: “When polarizing figures try to normalize political violence and make it a means of silencing moderate members of their own party and opponents, they cannot stop that violence. And whether it turns out that the (Trump) shooter, who was a registered Republican, acted out of right-wing or left-wing motives or was simply a disturbed individual, we don’t know. But once political violence is normalized, it spreads across the spectrum.”

“When you have political leaders like Marjorie Taylor Greene or Lauren Boebert or something like that who are elected with less than 10% of their electorate because the base is small in the primaries, then you allow more extreme positions to come to power, which then continue to normalize violence,” she added.

Kleinfeld said the normalization of violent political rhetoric and the resulting violence can be stopped by “broad condemnation” by the public and politicians who are on the same side as those promoting that rhetoric. She pointed to the decline in political violence internationally and historically after pro-violence politicians were removed from office.

“The best way to stop this is to vote out the political leaders who are trying to use inflammatory rhetoric and normalize violence in our system. Political primaries actually encourage extremism, and it would help a lot to eliminate political primaries and allow people to run directly to a general electorate,” Kleinfeld said. “All of us, regular people, are saying we don’t want that in our society, and we’re going to change the way we talk about the other side to make it less common.”

The assassination attempt on Trump last Saturday was carried out by the now deceased 20-year-old gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks, a registered Republican who once donated $15 to progressive Democrats.

After the shooting, Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres (NY) criticized Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), one of the leading contenders for Trump’s vice presidential nomination, after Vance blamed the shooting on Democrats and called Trump a “fascist.” Torres called Vance “despicably demagogic to the core” and said they had “preferred partisanship over statesmanship, even when the gravity of the moment requires a moratorium on the usual partisan politics.”

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