On a quiet Sunday afternoon in the presidential race, a Secret Service agent opened fire on a man who poked a rifle through a fence as Donald Trump golfed. Just two months earlier, a different gunman tried to kill Trump at a campaign rally. The shooting left one dead and two wounded.

Bomb threats have forced evacuations and lockdowns in Springfield, Ohio, schools, city hall and hospitals after Trump and other politicians amplified a false claim and racist trope that Haitian immigrants there are eating pets.

And both presidential candidates have had to speak from behind bulletproof glass at outdoor events. Federal authorities are already ramping up security for when Congress gathers to certify the winner in January.

The 2024 election season has been repeatedly marked by extraordinary acts and threats of violence, escalating tensions in an already-heated political environment, prompting heightened security measures at events and becoming a more contentious issue in the race with seven weeks of campaigning left to go.

Trump is blaming his Democratic opponents, declaring this week, as Sunday’s incident was still under investigation, that “their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at.” Officials have yet to describe a motive, and there is no evidence that Vice President Kamala Harris or President Joe Biden specifically inspired the attack. At the same time as he has faulted the words of Democrats, Trump has often used incendiary language of his own to describe his rivals, labeling them “the enemy from within.”

Democrats are reminding voters that Trump inspired the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and has pledged to pardon rioters if returned to office, a core part of what his critics and historians cite in making the case that he poses a threat to democracy. They have also voiced alarm that his falsehoods will endanger the residents of Springfield. The attention on the city’s Haitian population has led to bomb threats, and community events canceled for security reasons.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) said that the dozens of bomb threats were “unfounded” and that many of them came from overseas. But they were disruptive and led to the deployment of state troopers in schools, and Haitian residents have told reporters that they’re staying indoors for fear of reprisal attacks.

While the country’s history includes examples of violence upending campaigning and governance, from the upheaval of 1968 to the attempted assassinations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, this year’s race stands out from others in recent memory, experts said, with some long-simmering fears of violent acts breaking into the open.

“The United States has an undercurrent of political violence, and periodically for different reasons it bubbles to the top and explodes into riots, insurrections, succession, assassinations and assassination attempts,” said Barbara Perry, a professor at the University of Virginia who directs the presidential oral-history program. This year, she said, “I think this undercurrent has now become the current. Right now it’s at the surface, and it’s rushing along. We’re in a white-water rapids.”

‘A new plateau’

As threats and major episodes of violence have become a recurring element of the political process, many across the country are beginning to accept the incidents as a grim new reality, some observers said, a striking shift from prior elections. Erik Nisbet, a Northwestern University professor who studies political violence, said he’ll be watching political rhetoric in the coming weeks, with concern that the nation is hitting “a new plateau” in public tolerance for threats and bloodshed.

“Does it become the new normal? Do we shrug it off? Are we careful about language or, no, we just don’t care?” Nisbet said. “Are we accepting of this type of violence in our politics?”

The assassination attempt at Trump’s July 13 rally in Butler, Pa., and what the authorities are investigating as a potential attempt at his golf club in Florida on Sunday have spurred plenty of bipartisan condemnations of violence, including from Harris and Biden. Investigators said they were not able to determine the first gunman’s motive and did not find evidence he was driven by political ideology.

But Trump and his allies claimed Democrats bore blame and ramped up the message this week as some evidence emerged that the second alleged gunman, apparently a onetime Trump supporter who later turned away from him, had criticized the former president. Trump’s campaign has repeatedly accused Democrats of endangering him by labeling him a threat to democracy. But the Republican nominee has used the same attack line he has criticized, insisting his opponents are the real threat to democracy, claiming without evidence that they are behind his prosecutions.

A social media account linked to the suspect posted on an array of topics, including the war in Ukraine, and wrote scathingly of Trump this year, saying, “DEMOCRACY is on the ballot and we cannot lose.” Trump’s campaign Monday released a list of quotes from Harris and other Democrats calling Trump a threat to democracy and a video compilation of sound bites they said had stoked hate of Trump, going back to a moment when the comedian Kathy Griffin held up a mock severed Trump head.

“I really believe that the rhetoric from the Democrats,” Trump said in an interview with Washington Post opinion columnist Marc Thiessen on Monday, “is making the bullets fly. And it’s very dangerous.”

Harris’s campaign declined to comment on Trump blaming her for violence. “As we gather the facts, I will be clear: I condemn political violence,” she said in a statement Sunday.

Democrats say there is no equivalence between their rhetoric and Trump’s, pointing to inaccurate and inflammatory claims he and his allies have made, including about Springfield. Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), have repeated false rumors about Haitian immigrants in the town, with Trump declaring from a debate stage in prime time last week that people are “eating the dogs” and “eating the cats” — something local police officials had rebutted.

Rep. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) criticized Trump for not immediately denouncing the bomb threats in Springfield when a reporter asked about them. Trump said he didn’t know about them. “If anyone asks me if I denounce a bomb threat it’s a yes,” Schatz wrote on social media.

Trump also drew criticism last year for mockingly alluding to an attack on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband. A man broke into their home and beat Paul Pelosi with a hammer, fracturing his skull. “She’s against building a wall at our border, even though she has a wall around her house — which obviously didn’t do a very good job,” Trump said of the California Democrat.

On Monday, Trump reiterated his belief that Biden and Harris are “destroying the country, both from the inside and out,” and his descriptions of political opponents as “vermin” and existential threats “from within” the country have particularly alarmed historians and political observers.

“Only one candidate in this race has survived two assassination attempts, and it’s not Kamala Harris,” said Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt when asked about Trump’s heated criticism of Democrats even as he urges them to change their tone.

A prominent Trump ally faced criticism for making violent references rather than tamping down the rhetoric this week. Tech CEO and vocal Trump backer Elon Musk wrote a social media post Sunday after the incident at Trump’s golf course, writing, “no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala.” Musk later deleted the message.

Trump’s campaign did not comment on the post. Harris’s campaign denounced it.

The New Hampshire Libertarian Party deleted a widely criticized message it posted on social media Sunday saying that “Anyone who murders Kamala Harris would be an American hero.” The Secret Service is investigating the post as a threat against Harris, agency spokesman Nathan Herring said Monday.

It’s not just critics of Harris who have walked back comments. The wife of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman — a key witness in Trump’s first impeachment — deleted and apologized for a social media post making light of the July assassination attempt that bloodied Trump’s ear. “No ears were harmed. Carry on with your Sunday afternoon,” Rachel Vindman, a Trump critic, wrote after Sunday’s golf club scare, in comments that Trump’s team amplified.

“It was flippant & political violence is a serious issue,” she wrote on Monday. “Whether it’s aimed at a former president, the media, immigrants, or political ‘enemies’ & every incident should be addressed appropriately if we want to change the tenor of our political discourse.”

The threats of violence are also evident in the staging of the campaign trail stops. Trump has increased security at his events since the July shooting: He scaled back appearances at outdoor venues that are harder to secure, and the Secret Service last month approved a plan to surround him at outdoor rallies with ballistic glass normally reserved for select appearances by presidents and vice presidents. Vance has also used the glass recently, and Harris spoke behind a similar shield at her outdoor New Hampshire event this month.

‘A turn for the worse’

U.S. presidents have faced assassination plots over the years, but the attempt on Trump’s life this summer was the closest call in a long time. A man threw a hand grenade toward George W. Bush during a foreign trip in 2005, but Bush was positioned behind a bulletproof barrier and unscathed. Further back, Reagan was seriously wounded by a man trying to kill him in 1981, and Ford survived two assassination attempts in a span of a few weeks in 1975.

Historians also point back to 1968 — when leading Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated after the murder of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and when Democrats’ convention in Chicago devolved into violent clashes between protesters and police.

Brian Levin, a professor emeritus at California State University at San Bernardino who has studied extremism for decades, said that “targeted violence” — aimed at specific targets such as government officials, public facilities or marginalized groups — “has taken a turn for the worse over the last several years.” He and other researchers pointed to environments that encourage vitriol, a “buffet” of new paths to radicalization on the internet and growing numbers of guns, among other factors.

“Oftentimes what we’re seeing is the most aggressive and emotionally resonant types of messages are the ones that become viral, whether they’re true or not,” Levin said.

People who monitor political violence or threats warn that attacks strain an already fragile security climate ahead of the election. After the shooting at Trump’s July rally, an Institute for Strategic Dialogue report noted: “Although calls for civil war often follow high-profile incidents involving the former president, they were elevated to one of their highest levels in the wake of the attack on Trump. Discussions were frequently accompanied by allegations that the assassination attempt was part of a ‘Deep State’ plot to instigate a civil war between Republicans and Democrats.”

Meanwhile, the Sunday incident reinforced for many Trump supporters the idea that their candidate and their movement is in the crosshairs. On right-wing online forums, there were renewed expressions of outrage and fury along with a smattering of overt calls for violence.

In memes and AI-generated images, some portrayed Trump as a defiant, muscled warrior with a “2-0” record against his would-be assassins.

Maria Sacchetti contributed to this report.

Donald Trump and his campaign have quickly responded to Sunday’s threat to the former president’s life by blaming Democrats. High on their list of alleged offenses? Democrats’ having called Trump a “threat to democracy” and a “fascist.”

Trump spotlighted the “threat to democracy” rhetoric in a Fox News interview Monday in which he directly blamed President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. His running mate, JD Vance, referenced the “fascist” rhetoric at an event later in the day in Georgia.

Given what is being investigated as a second attempt to assassinate Trump, a debate over whether political rhetoric goes too far is valid. Plenty would argue — and are arguing — that it’s fair to affix the “threat to democracy” label to a guy who, after all, tried to overturn the 2020 election based on lies. And whether “fascist” is appropriate or not, Trump has certainly adopted some authoritarian-leaning proposals. He even talked about needing to be a dictator on Day One of his presidency and floated the idea of “terminating” parts of the Constitution.

There remains no evidence that the gunmen in the two incidents were actually incited by Democrats’ rhetoric.

But even if we set all that aside, Trump’s argument is flawed by a significant deficit: He uses these talking points a lot more than his opponents right now — and has been for months.

Democrats largely turned the page on the “threat to democracy” talking point ever since the first Trump assassination attempt and Harris’s replacement of Biden in July. The Biden and Harris political efforts have rarely called Trump a “fascist.” They’ve made other arguments in that vein, but not as directly.

Nor have they been as direct as Trump has, repeatedly.

According to a Washington Post review of campaign appearances and social media posts, Trump has called Harris, the Democrats or other perceived foes a “threat to democracy” a dozen times in the past month and more than 20 times since Harris got into the race.

“She shouldn’t be there anyway. She got no votes,” Trump said Friday in Las Vegas. “She’s a threat to democracy, right?”

“They’re the threat to democracy with the fake ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ investigation that went nowhere,” Trump said at last week’s debate.

“THE FAILING NEW YORK TIMES IS A TRUE THREAT TO DEMOCRACY!” Trump posted on social media just hours before Ryan Wesley Routh was apprehended Sunday after he allegedly hid himself in the bushes with a rifle and scope close to where Trump was golfing in West Palm Beach, Fla.

Trump has also used the “fascist” label at least seven times in the past month, and he used it dozens more times before that.

He invoked fascism twice Friday alone, including by calling Harris a “radical-left Marxist communist fascist.”

Harris and her campaign haven’t used such rhetoric nearly as much in recent months. The Trump campaign has pointed to specific examples of supposedly dangerous Democratic rhetoric, but much of it is months old at this point.

The campaign on Monday posted four X posts from Harris herself, but the dates were conspicuously cropped out; it turns out none of the posts came after July 4.

About the most applicable semi-recent example cited by the Trump campaign was from Harris’s now-running mate, Tim Walz, in late July, when he agreed that Trump and Vance were a “threat to democracy” and would “put people’s lives in danger.” Walz added: “The fascists depend on fear. The fascists depend on us going back.”

These comments came after the first assassination attempt on Trump but before the Minnesota governor was picked to join the Democratic ticket.

Trump allies have also pointed to Biden’s invoking the f-word by describing “semi-fascism” within the MAGA movement — a comment for which Republicans roundly criticized him. That comment came in 2022.

The Post’s review found other Biden and Harris allies invoking the “threat to democracy” language in recent weeks, but not extensively and generally not from the campaign. They include Republican and conservative Harris endorsers such as former congresswomen Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Barbara Comstock (R-Va.), and former federal judge J. Michael Luttig. Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on Monday night cited Trump’s “danger to our country and the world.” And former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), in an interview at the Democratic National Convention last month, called Trump “a threat to our democracy of the kind that we have not seen.”

But even at the convention, that kind of commentary wasn’t a fixture. Although Biden has favored this talking point, his speech on the convention’s first night more obliquely cited threats to democracy, such as Jan. 6, 2021, before citing how “Donald Trump says he will refuse to accept the election result if he loses again.” Harris in her own speech merely cited “the enduring struggle between democracy and tyranny.”

That’s indicative of how this has faded as a talking point for Democrats — whether because they soured on it after the first Trump assassination attempt, when some Republicans cried foul, or because they didn’t see it paying political dividends, or some combination of both. But, at the same time, Trump has gone full speed ahead on this rhetoric.

Republicans would undoubtedly argue that the old comments are still applicable when it comes to potentially inciting violence (even as there remains no evidence that they did in these cases). And Trump often mentions Democrats’ past “threat to democracy” attacks while affixing the label to them, in his trademark I’m-rubber-you’re-glue strategy.

But it’s still conspicuous that the Trump campaign would highlight specific charges that Trump himself has been making a lot more than his opponents have. If this kind of rhetoric is so dangerous and Trump’s opponents have backed off it, why wouldn’t Trump do the same — in the spirit of lowering the temperature?

Of course, despite the claims about the danger of Democrats’ rhetoric, Trump’s has often gone well beyond even “threat to democracy.” He has repeatedly and suggestively promoted the prospect of political violence. He once promoted the words of a supporter who said, “The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.” Just last year, he promoted a social media user who pledged to “physically fight” for him and talked about having his gun “Locked and LOADED.” He has downplayed the crimes his supporters committed on Jan. 6, 2021, and expressed support for them.

It’s good to have a conversation about the dangers of overheated political rhetoric. It’s just that, as is often the case, Trump has left his party without a principled leg to stand on. And that, combined with the rush to judgment in a situation we still know little about, could sure lead one to understand this as a political ploy.

It’s important to establish a timeline on what happened in Springfield, Ohio, so let’s begin there.

Over the summer, right-wing extremists and others began to promote baseless rumors that Haitian immigrants in that community were stealing and eating residents’ pets. Changes the city was undergoing were newsworthy, certainly; NPR and then the New York Times wrote stories about Springfield and the way in which it encapsulated one aspect of the immigration debate. A few days after the latter story, a Facebook post making a fourth-hand allegation about someone’s cat began going viral within the right-wing social media universe. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) quickly piled on, as did his running mate, former president Donald Trump, at last week’s presidential debate.

There was no evidence for the claims being made, just rumors and misrepresentations of photos or news stories. But as Vance argued on social media, the right shouldn’t “let the crybabies in the media dissuade you” from amplifying the false story, one that mirrors past racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric. Instead, he said, they should “keep the cat memes flowing.”

In Springfield, all of this landed differently. There was a spate of bomb threats that prompted the closure of schools and other facilities. A community festival was canceled. Individuals in the city were threatened.

“We’ve had bomb threats the last two days,” Springfield Mayor Rob Rue, a Republican, told Politico. “We’ve had personal threats the last two days, and it’s increasing, because the national stage is swirling this up. Springfield, Ohio, is caught in a political vortex, and it is a bit out of control.”

As Vance said on CNN on Sunday, though, he sees political value in amplifying claims about Haitian immigrants story, regardless of their veracity. He’s tried to suggest that those stories are the only way the press would cover the real problem, in his estimation, which is the strain posed by the immigrants — and, he alleges, the deaths and disease they brought with them. That NPR and the Times were already reporting on the city before the memes is not something Vance usually mentions.

He is, however, frustrated at having people mention how the tumult described by Rue came only after he and Trump started amplifying Springfield as an example of the purported dangers of immigrants. So at an event in Sparta, Mich., on Tuesday, he seized upon a new report to suggest that none of the negative effects on Springfield — a town he represents in the Senate — were his fault.

“A lot of people who pretend to be fair journalists, you know what they’ve been saying?” Vance began. “For the last few days, Springfield has been experiencing an unbelievable number, something like 35, 40 bomb threats in Springfield in just the last few days.

“And you know what?” he continued. “The governor of Ohio came out yesterday and said every single one of those bomb threats was a hoax. And all of those bomb threats came from foreign countries. So the American media for three days has been lying and saying that Donald Trump and I are inciting bomb threats, when in reality the American media has been laundering foreign disinformation. It is disgusting. And every single one of them owes the residents of Springfield an apology.”

Like so much of what Vance has said about Springfield, this is flatly untrue.

First of all, bomb threats are often hoaxes. The entire point is to introduce stress and panic into the target of the threat, to force law enforcement to respond or to disrupt the plans of those targeted. Vance’s argument is akin to saying that a flurry of death threats against a prominent individual — such as, say, Mayor Rue — were fake or not newsworthy because the person wasn’t actually killed. It is certainly better that there were no bombs, but that doesn’t mean that the threats were innocuous.

Vance also seems to be trying to parlay the word “hoax” as applied to the threat to describe, instead, coverage of the threats by calling them “disinformation.” Those threats, though, aren’t akin to the pet-eating claims (which, like assertions about fraud in the 2020 election, prompted a desperate and unsuccessful search by Trump supporters for evidence to back up the baseless assertion). The threats actually happened.

Vance tries to wave that away by stating that all of the bomb threats came from foreign countries. (He didn’t address the other threats, you’ll notice.) His claim wasn’t true, as a representative of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s (R) office confirmed to The Washington Post and to the Associated Press; many or most originated overseas, but not all. It’s also not clear how this is supposed to be significantly better for Vance. So it’s foreign nationals who should be accused of following up on your rhetoric? All right, if you insist.

“What they’re doing,” Vance said a moment later of the media, “is trying to shut all of us up. They’re trying to say: How dare you, citizens of Springfield, complain about this migrant inflow because now these bomb threats are happening?”

Again, the issue of immigration in Springfield had already generated media attention before Vance’s beloved cat memes, even though Vance himself was hardly focused on the city. (His first mention of it on the social media site X was his first one attempting to leverage the initial claims about pets.) Nor is there any reason to think that the bomb threats were a response to city residents complaining about immigrants, given that they all followed the amplification of the story about pets, not the concerns that drew media attention in the first place.

Vance will probably chalk this article up as a success, given that we’re still here talking about Springfield and immigration. Except, of course, that we’re not talking only about that. We’re also talking about a senator who spreads false claims about legal residents of his state for political purposes and then tries to blame the negative repercussions of those claims on the media that’s covering them.

The media, unlike many in Springfield, is able to defend itself.

Democrats pushed again this week to spotlight Republican’s unpopular positions on reproductive rights, slamming Senate Republicans for voting Tuesday to block a bill to expand access to in vitro fertilization and accusing former president Donald Trump of putting women’s lives at risk.

The Senate vote aimed to remind voters two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade that Trump appointed the justices who backed that decision, that congressional Republicans could seek to ban abortion nationwide, and that even non-abortion procedures such as IVF could be at risk.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday called Republicans’ opposition to the bill “extreme, dangerous, and wrong” in a statement after the vote failed. “Our administration will always fight to protect reproductive freedoms, which must include access to IVF.’

Earlier in the day, Harris blamed Trump for the death of a woman in Georgia who died from an infection after failing to receive a timely abortion at a hospital in the state that has banned it, according to an investigation by ProPublica. “This young mother should be alive, raising her son, and pursuing her dream of attending nursing school,” Harris said in a statement, casting the death as a consequence of Trump’s actions.

As the election enters its final weeks, Democrats are seizing on IVF and abortion in races up and down the ballot, as more voters consistently side with Democrats over Republicans on both issues and the GOP struggles to find a consistent — and credible — message.

Republicans, who said they would vote against the Senate bill because it is a federal overreach, have nonetheless insisted they are largely supportive of IVF. Every Republican senator signed a letter saying they support IVF, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who is up for reelection this fall, introduced a separate bill that would punish states that ban IVF by withholding Medicaid funds from them.

Still, Democrats in close races up and down the ballot are seeking to tie Republicans to both abortion bans and an Alabama court’s decision to thrust IVF into legal jeopardy. Both procedures are supported by a majority of Americans.

The approach has put Republicans on defense, particularly Trump, who has said he wouldn’t sign a bill banning abortion nationwide and has called for states to choose abortion limits for themselves, after calling himself the “most pro-life president” during his first term. Trump has recently said on the campaign trail that he is a “leader in fertilization” and would mandate free IVF procedures.

But Republicans again blocked the bill, called the Right to IVF Act, after previously blocking it in June, when only Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) voted with Democrats to allow debate on it. The bill would mandate insurance coverage for the procedure and guarantee a federal right to access.

“Three months ago, nearly every Senate Republican voted against protecting IVF in this chamber,” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer said on the floor Tuesday. “It was astounding to watch them with a straight face … claim that of course they cared about supporting families, of course they supported IVF. Just not enough to actually vote to protect it.”

A Trump campaign spokeswoman did not return a request for comment on where Trump stood on the Senate IVF bill. Democrats slammed him for his silence.

“He can send out a tweet right now and get all my Republican colleagues to vote for this,” said Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a combat-wounded veteran who conceived her two daughters using IVF.

Republicans dismissed the bill as a political “show vote” that had no chance of becoming law. Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the No. 2 Senate Republican, accused Schumer of creating “a political wedge issue just because it’s an election year.”

“Everybody knows the outcome of this, and I think it would be in everybody’s best interest if we actually were doing the things that people expect us to be doing here,” he said, mentioning appropriations bills as one example.

The vote failed to reach the 60 votes needed to proceed, with just two Republicans crossing the aisle to support it. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), who was campaigning in Michigan on Tuesday, did not vote.

Harris’s campaign has spent more than $22 million on ads since early August that reference abortion rights, according to data from the firm AdImpact. Before that, President Joe Biden spent $12.6 million between March and July on ads referencing abortion rights.

Some Republicans in swing districts are starting to run ads portraying themselves in favor of IVF and abortion rights — or at least not opposed to them. In a campaign ad released last week, Republican candidate Matt Gunderson looks directly into the camera as he labels himself “pro-choice.”

“On a woman’s right to choose, I’m pro-choice,” says Gunderson, who is running to unseat Democratic Rep. Mike Levin in California. “I believe abortion should be safe, legal and rare.”

At least four vulnerable House Republicans have either called themselves “pro-choice” or vowed to oppose a national abortion ban in recent ads, interviews or op-eds. At least three House Republicans have released campaign ads or texts saying they support IVF. And one Republican Senate candidate, former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, is running ads saying he would vote to codify Roe v. Wade.

In a call with reporters hosted by the Harris campaign before the vote, speakers predicted the vote would demonstrate Trump and Vance are not as supportive of IVF as they claim to be. Vance voted against proceeding to the legislation in June.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) scoffed at Trump’s recent proposal to require free IVF access, saying there is “no way in the world that I believe that Donald Trump is serious about this.”

“This is a guy who is trapped in his own decisions to rip away abortion services and reproductive freedom,” Stabenow said. “He’s scrambling. That’s what he always does.’

Mariana Alfaro and Patrick Svitek contributed to this report.