The Alliance for Peacebuilding Condemns the Political Violence and Assassination Attempt on Donald Trump, Calls for a Comprehensive Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding Plan in the U.S.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 14, 2024
CONTACT
Nick Zuroski | nick@allianceforpeacebuilding.org
Washington, DC, USA — The Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP), a network of 220+ organizations working in 181 countries to prevent and reduce violent conflict and violence and build sustainable peace, strongly condemns the recent deadly political violence and assassination attempt at a campaign event for the former U.S. President and Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump in Pennsylvania. AfP calls on elected officials, the private sector, and community leaders to provide political will and resources that support the robust analysis of the drivers of political violence in the U.S. This analysis must inform a comprehensive conflict prevention and peacebuilding plan. If we fail to address major grievances driving conflict and instability in the U.S., then we do so at our own peril.
The recent political violence is another worrying indicator of the increasing political threats, violence, and subversion of democracy in the U.S. Experts have been warning for years of increasing violence and instability in the U.S., driven by distrust over identity-based grievances, fear based on an “us versus them” framing, and spiraling disinformation and inflammatory rhetoric. These conflict drivers manifested in the deadly January 6th attack on the Capitol by those protesting the former President’s electoral loss and have yet to be addressed.
While the same fears of far-right attacks that drove January 6th are still present and deeply concerning, Bob Pape, who directs the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats, warned that violent anti-Trump sentiments are increasing and outnumber violent pro-Trump sentiments even before the disturbing recent events. A survey by the project in late June found there is now more support for violence against Trump (10 percent of American adults, or 26 million people) compared with violence in favor of Trump (6.9 percent of American adults, or 18 million people). Even more worrying, the survey also found that 58.6 percent of American adults agree that in today’s America, elections will not solve the country’s most fundamental political and social problems. These results, unfortunately, align with The Economist’s findings that the U.S. is a flawed democracy, and has been declining on all major democracy indexes since 2006.
Conflict in every society is inevitable, but violent conflict and violence are not. Leaders must provide resources and the political will to prevent and reduce violent conflict and violence and build trust and resilience in the U.S. While we call on all elected officials and candidates seeking election to publicly demand a stop to the increasing inflammatory political rhetoric and violence, AfP also renews its call for the development of a bold peacebuilding and conflict prevention plan to build sustainable peace and prevent violence in the U.S. AfP’s new Peacebuilding Starts at Home initiative is expanding on our previous work by educating and raising awareness on the drivers of political violence in the U.S. and how to address them; mapping and connecting people to organizations that are working to build peace in their communities and beyond; and developing and disseminating ways to explain how anyone in the U.S. can build peace in an easy, accessible way. Please learn more about this initiative here.
The Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP), named the “number one influencer and change agent” among peacebuilding institutions worldwide, is an award-winning nonprofit and nonpartisan network of 220+ organizations working in 181 countries to prevent and reduce violent conflict and build sustainable peace. AfP cultivates a network to strengthen and advance the peacebuilding field, enabling peacebuilding organizations to achieve greater impact—tackling issues too large for any one organization to address alone.