The second alleged assassination attempt on former President Trump raises further concerns about the current political climate.
It also makes you think about a period when the United States was hit by violence during a major presidential election more than 50 years ago.
The Secret Service on Sunday shot a suspect seen with a high-powered rifle at former President Donald Trump’s golf course near West Palm Beach, Florida.
Trump was the target of an assassination attempt at his Florida golf club, FBI says
The incident happened about two months after a bullet fired by a would-be assassin hit Trump in the ear in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“This is the most chaotic political year since 1968, which saw two assassinations of prominent leaders,” said Tom Whalen, a political historian and BU professor. “Fortunately, Trump has successfully avoided them.”
Martin Luther King Jr. and Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated just two months apart in 1968.
Whalen said the rising violence, on both the left and the right, was a major concern at the time.
He worries about what Sunday’s alleged assassination attempt on Trump could mean for the weeks leading up to the November election.
“The threat of violence is in the air,” he said. “We live in a violent society and I think that, unfortunately, this is going to be the norm of the future.”
The rising tensions during this election campaign raise questions about the security protocols for presidential candidates.
“There tends to be different rules for former presidents than there are for sitting presidents,” said Dan Linskey, a security analyst for Boston 25 News. “I think it’s time to look at those rules, especially in light of two potential threats that could have taken the life of former President Trump.”
Linskey, a former Boston police chief, is convinced the armed suspect would never have gotten so close to Trump if he had been president.
“The Secret Service would have discussed that with local Palm Beach County authorities and made sure that there was no or limited access for an individual to be in a position to do this,” he added.
Linskey said one of the challenges in revising the current protocol is that the Secret Service has limited resources and the increasing number of threats it needs to track.
“It will be interesting to see how the Secret Service adapts to this,” he added. “What resources we see and how quickly we see that change.”
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