MORE: Trump shot in ear at Pennsylvania rally, suspected gunman killed by Secret Service
BETHLEHEM, Pa. — As America gasped and grappled with an attempt on the life of former President Donald Trump, Lehigh Valley political leaders recalled the political violence of 1968.
At the time, America appeared to be coming apart at the seams with anger over race relations and the Vietnam War.
That year, gunmen killed U.S. Sen. Bobby Kennedy as he campaigned for the White House as well as racial justice icon Martin Luther King Jr.
Saturday's shooting at a Trump rally in Butler, Pa., immediately brought those times to the minds of Northampton County Republican Chairman Glenn Geissinger and state Rep. Robert Freeman, D-Northampton.
“The most frightening thing is that we’ve come to this. People are attempting to take out a candidate. We’re back in the ‘60s,” Geissinger said.
“It’s a flashback almost in terms of what took place,” Freeman said.
“It’s a sad state of affairs for where our political system is right now. It does speak to the way in which so much of the rhetoric has gotten inflamed.”State Rep. Robert Freeman, D-Northampton
More recently, political candidates and their allies have been ratcheting up the rhetoric in their campaigns for years.
Trump and President Joe Biden have each said the future of America is on the ballot this November. Biden has said Trump is a threat to American democracy after he tried to overthrow the 2020 presidential election.
Trump, meanwhile, has accused Biden and other state election officials of weaponizing the federal government to stop him from winning a second term.
“It’s a sad state of affairs for where our political system is right now,” Freeman said. “It does speak to the way in which so much of the rhetoric has gotten inflamed.”
Charlie Dent, a Republican who represented the Lehigh Valley in Congress for 13 years, hoped that Saturday’s attack would force America to consider how heated its politics have become.
“Maybe this will take us to a point where people will turn the temperature down."Former Lehigh Valley Congressman Charlie Dent
Trump said he was shot in the right ear. A rally spectator was shot and killed, and two others were critically wounded, according to the Secret Service. The suspected gunman, identified by the FBI as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pa., was killed by Secret Service agents.
Dent, Geissinger and Freeman all condemned the attack and said there was no place for violence in American politics.
“Maybe this will take us to a point where people will turn the temperature down,” Dent said.
“We’ve seen far too many attacks on public officials and their families. This needs to stop,” he added.
He rattled off the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on Congress, the shooting of U.S. Reps. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz., and Steve Scalise, R-La., and an attack on U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s husband as examples from recent years.
Effect on presidential race
The shooting in western Pennsylvania was the first attempt to assassinate a president or presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981.
Dent, Geissinger and Freeman said it was too soon to say how Saturday’s attack could affect the presidential race, including questions about how accessible candidates may be moving forward; how presidential security could be changed; or what legislative efforts may emerge.
Geissinger, however, was sure of one thing.
“This attempted assassination will solidify the members of the Republican Party behind Donald Trump,” he said, adding that his phone has been inundated by texts from people looking to volunteer for the Trump campaign.
“It will do nothing but raise his popularity and the motivation to knock doors for him, to vote for him.”
