KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Conspiracy theories, misinformation and distrust are just a few things voters are grappling with after Saturday’s assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump.
“Those who were somewhat indifferent, somewhat uninclined to vote are forced to pay attention to it,” said Debra Leiter, an associate professor in the University of Missouri — Kansas City’s political science department. “Not just because it’s on the news, but because this is so important to understand.”
Leiter and KSHB 41’s Rachel Henderson discussed viewing this even through a psychological and sociological lens.
“Donald Trump has long campaigned on sort of an image of defiance, of strength,” Leiter said. “And this is a really common strategy for leaders, populist leaders like Donald Trump, who are coming from outside the system to portray that. So certainly his immediate reaction fits with that image well.”
That image of strength was further perpetuated by his raised fist, captured moments after the attempted assassination, and it’s circulating fast.
“We’re going to see that image over and over again for the next several months, but there’s still entire campaigns to run, so to say that this is the moment where the election was pre-decided is probably premature,” Leiter said.
Leiter says just as many eyes are on the Democratic Party now as the Republicans.
“Democrats have been saying since the beginning of this election that they’re trying to restore a sort of normalcy to the election to bring sort of back a sort of cool and measured rhetoric, and this is really their chance to show that that’s the case,” she said.
Leiter added that accountability is necessary for both Democrats and Republicans.
“Rhetoric has been negative on both sides, and calls to violence have existed on both sides,” Leiter said. “And certainly, that kind of language appeals to voters looking for a strong leader, which is what Donald Trump has been portraying.”
The current political temperature is something Leiter believes both voters and officials can address.
“We have two choices,” she said. “We can continue down a route where political violence is a part of our potential campaign risks, or we can take this as a moment to wake up and cool things down, and much of that is going to have to be done at the elected official level.”
But with people surrounded by echo chambers and misinformation, Leiter says, the second choice is difficult.
“One of the things that always occurs after events like this is a massive explosion in conspiracy theories,” Leiter said. “People are going to be hearing a lot of misinformation. I’ve already started to see, fascinatingly, as many conspiracies on the left as on the right. It’s really important just to not turn to conspiracy but to instead think about the real root causes of this violence and how we can respond.”
She says fact-checking sources and holding all elected officials accountable is a voter’s way to navigate the upcoming political process.
“We need to start talking to each other, cooperating, finding those areas of concordance, coming back to shaking hands at the start of a debate,” Leiter said. “We also, I think, as a society, need to start turning against elected officials that use the rhetoric that promotes violence. If you don’t follow, like or retweet, or most importantly, if you don’t vote for them, it can have limited effects. So at the end of the day, it is voters who can help to cool temperature down.”
But that starts, Leiter says, with actually voting.
“That is much more powerful than any bullet could ever be, and that is the tool that citizens should rely on to make their decisions about the future,” Leiter said.
In times like this where fear may drive Americans to otherwise not retreat into the shadows, Leiter says civic engagement remains necessary.
“I think the most important thing is not to let fear keep people from participating in the political process,” Leiter said. “There’s still an election on. We still need to have conversations about the future of the country, but we need to be careful about how we talk about elections, how we talk about candidates and how we talk about each other.”
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