Most Americans were glad that Donald Trump escaped a bullet at the fateful rally in Pennsylvania.
But not everyone was happy that 20-year-old hitman Thomas Matthew Crooks was such a bad shot.
Until now, many have assumed that only a few bad apples wanted the Republican candidate to get a bullet in the head.
That is not true, according to new, alarming research by a British academic.
According to Eric Kaufmann, a shocking third of Democratic voters wished Trump had left his July 13 campaign rally in a body bag.
Polls show at least a third of the people in this photo wanted Trump to take a bullet in Butler
A whopping 71 percent of left-wing radicals said they supported the attempted assassination of Trump.
Among progressives, that percentage is much higher, says the political scientist from the University of Buckingham.
A whopping 71 percent of left-wing radicals said they supported the attempted assassination of Trump.
Kaufmann said his results could be explained by “woke moral absolutism.”
“Identity politics has moralized the left’s view and portrayed conservatives as bad rather than wrong,” he says.
Eric Kaufmann says leftists have embraced ‘woke moral absolutism’
Kaufmann conducted his snap poll of a few hundred people five days after the attack, in which Crooks killed firefighter Corey Comperatore, 50, and wounded two others, including Trump.
In the hours that followed, several prominent liberals voiced support for the assassin, who was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper.
Jacqueline Marsaw, who worked for a Democrat in the Mississippi House of Representatives, posted on Facebook that Crooks should “take shooting lessons so they don’t miss next time.”
“Oops, that wasn’t me,” she added.
Kyle Gass, who performs with film star Jack Black in the American comedy-rock duo Tenacious D, said: “Don’t miss Trump next time,” in an offhand remark during a show in Australia.
Colorado Democratic Rep. Steven Woodrow lamented the way the failed attack had created “sympathy for the devil.”
The comments were a bad idea and led to fierce backlash against all three.
Marsaw was fired, Woodrow went back on his words and apologized, and Gass’s musical career was ruined.
Although these three were lambasted on social media, Kaufmann’s research suggests their views were widespread in America’s left-wing politics.
According to him, this amounts to a growing “partisan asymmetry” in America.
“The left is more prejudiced against the right than the other way around,” he adds.
His research shows that left-wing people are more likely to unfriend, refuse to date, or otherwise discriminate against conservatives than the other way around.
Respondents who supported Trump’s assassination attempt also held other hardline views toward the GOP.
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump gestures as he is surrounded by U.S. Secret Service agents as he is escorted off the stage
Kyle Gass, Jack Black and bassist John Spike have retired from performing after Gass’ comment in support of the shooting
For example, many of them agreed with the statement that “white Republicans are racist,” Kauffman found.
This underscores the attitude among leftists, who believe conservatives are “more bad than wrong,” he says.
As a result, they use “catastrophic language around ‘white supremacy,’ ‘fascism’ and ‘danger,’” he says.
“Given our new politics of identitarian sanctity and moral absolutism, we should not be surprised if we see a rise in political extremism,” he warns.
He is not the only observer expressing concern about the explosive political rhetoric in the 2024 presidential election.
Speaking from the Oval Office after the Butler shooting, President Joe Biden said it was time to “turn down the temperature” in our politics.
“The political rhetoric in this country has become very heated,” he added.
“It’s time to cool down.”
Biden later revised some of his own concise political language and retracted a statement he made a week before the killing in which he had said it was “time to put Trump in our sights.”
Thomas Matthew Crooks
FBI Director Christopher Wray briefed Congress this week on his agency’s investigation into the shooting.
According to him, the event took place at a time when the political atmosphere surrounding the presidential campaign was becoming increasingly tense.
“I’ve been saying for some time that we live in an environment of heightened risk,” Wray testified.
‘Tragically, the … attempted murder is another example, particularly horrific.’
The motive for the shooting remains unclear.
According to Wray, Crooks is described by many as a loner. His phone contact list is short and his political leanings are unclear.
The day before Wray’s testimony, Kimberly Cheatle resigned as director of the U.S. Secret Service after bipartisan demands that she step down over her failure to prevent the assassination attempt.
Much of the criticism focused on the failure to secure the roof of an industrial building, where the shooter was located about 450 feet (137 meters) from the podium where Trump was speaking.