Photo: Tom Brenner Getty Images via Agence France-Presse The South Lawn of the White House photographed July 10, 2024, during the NATO allies' visit to Washington, D.C.
Posted at 2:47 p.m. Updated at 3:33 p.m.
Political violence, such as the one that nearly cost former President Donald Trump his life this Saturday, has been a feature of the American narrative since its beginnings. A look back at these disastrous episodes of political attacks, sometimes marked by madness and anarchy, but also by the social tensions of a country with multiple episodes of turbulence.
The first major American political figure to be shot by an adversary was former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, founder of the Federalist Party and confidant of the first President George Washington. It was none other than then-Vice President Aaron Burr who shot him dead during a duel over political differences — and a visceral animosity between the two men.
Hamilton took his last breath on July 12, 1804, almost 220 years to the day before the assassination attempt perpetrated on Saturday against Donald Trump. Burr was accused, but never tried; he was even able to complete his term as vice-president.
The first president killed in office was Abraham Lincoln, shot dead by actor John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865, during a performance in a Washington theater.
“Lincoln’s assassination occurs at a time of great political tension,” explains Christophe Cloutier-Roy, deputy director of the Observatory on the United States of the Raoul-Dandurand Chair. “It's the end of the Civil War, there is a strong geographical division between the north and the south, the question of slavery still greatly polarizes American society… It is similar to the current divisions marked by polarization extreme between Democrats and Republicans, by marked ideological differences, by a demonization of the opposing party and by an opposition between urban and rural environments. »
Lincoln's assassination was part of a larger conspiracy to decapitate the American government and resurrect the Confederacy. “It was not only Lincoln who was targeted, but also his vice-president, Andrew Jackson, and his secretary of state, William H. Seward,” continues Mr. Cloutier-Roy. “It was a very elaborate attempt at destabilization. » Only Lincoln finally fell under the bullets. The run of his assassin, killed as soon as discovered in a Virginia stable, ended on April 26.
The 20th American president, James Garfield, was assassinated in 1881, less than 20 years after Abraham Lincoln. It was the lawyer Charles J. Guiteau, convinced that the federal government had deprived him of a diplomatic post that was rightfully his, who discharged his revolver on the elected official who was strolling through a Washington train station. President Garfield was bedridden for nearly 10 weeks before succumbing to his injuries on September 19. His assassin was executed the following year.
Twenty years later, it was President William McKinley who died in office. This time, the shots came from an unemployed 28-year-old anarchist, Leon F. Czolgosz, who shot him twice in the chest during a crowd in Buffalo. The wound became infected; McKinley died on September 14, 1901, eight days after the attack. His assassin died in the electric chair on October 29 of the same year.
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000In Milwaukee, on October 14, 1912, a disturbed man convinced that the ghost of William McKinley summoned him to kill Theodore Roosevelt, John Schrank, shot the former president at point blank range while campaigning for reconnect with the White House.
The bullet lodged in the politician's chest after ricocheting off a metal glasses case and a 50-page speech folded in the lapel of his jacket. Despite the blood spilling from the wound, the latter nevertheless decides to deliver his speech, apologizing for having to cut it short due to the circumstances. He will talk for 90 minutes before accepting treatment.
Teddy Roosevelt lost his election, but never with the bullet lodged in his body: doctors believed that removing the projectile presented a greater danger to the former president than leaving it there.
“FDR” also escaped an assassination attempt shortly after his election in 1933. An anarchist of Italian origin, Giuseppe Zangara, opened fire while the elected official gave a speech to the back of a convertible in Miami. Roosevelt escaped unscathed and was able to be sworn in in March 1933, but Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak died in the process.
Tried and found guilty of the murder and attack, Zangara was sentenced to death.
The 33rd president emerged unscathed from an invasion of his home by two armed men in 1950. A police officer and one of the attackers died in the attack. Harry Truman himself commuted the death sentence imposed on the other attacker, Oscar Collazo, to life in prison, whom President Jimmy Carter finally pardoned in 1979.
The fourth and last American president assassinated was John Fitzgerald Kennedy, killed in Dallas in November 1963, in the middle of a parade, under the horrified gaze of his wife and curious onlookers gathered on the edge of Dealey Plaza.
A few hours after the attack, the police arrested Lee Harvey Oswald. The latter never stood trial: he died two days after his arrest under the bullets of a local bar owner, Jack Ruby, within the Dallas police headquarters.
“It’s a period when American society is in turmoil,” observes Christopher Cloutier-Roy. “JFK gets assassinated; his brother, Senator Robert F. Kennedy too, in 1968. Just like Martin Luther King Jr the same year. It was a particularly tumultuous chapter in American history due to the social tensions surrounding, among other things, desegregation and the Vietnam War. »
Two assassination attempts targeted Gerald Ford in the space of three weeks. And, even more surprising, the 37th president escaped each time. The first took place on September 5, 1975 in California: Lynette Fromme, a disciple of the bloodthirsty guru Charles Manson, tried to shoot President Ford, but saw her gun jammed. The second came 17 days later, when Sara Jane Moore opened fire on the president in the lobby of a San Francisco hotel, but missed.
Fromme and Moore were released from prison in 2009 and 2007 respectively. To this day, they remain the only two women to have attempted the life of a president in American history.< /p>
When John Hinckley Jr opened fire on Ronald Reagan in 1981 in the name of a delusional obsession with actress Jodie Foster, he did not miss his target. He hit the 40th president in the chest as he was leaving a Washington hotel, in addition to injuring three other people, including White House spokesperson James Brady, who was paralyzed following the attack. .
The author of the assassination attempt was found not guilty due to his insanity: he nevertheless only regained his freedom in 2022 after a long stay of three decades in a psychiatric establishment.
With raised fist and bloodied face, former President Donald Trump joined the disastrous ranks of targets of political attacks in the United States on Saturday. The motive of the shooter remains unknown at this time, but the event takes place in a context of increasing political violence and easily accessible firearms. “Collectively, yes, we are shocked by the attack, but are we really surprised ?” asks Christophe Cloutier-Roy, from the Raoul-Dandurand Chair.
“Before Saturday, there was an attack on the husband of [former Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives] Nancy Pelosi; there was a shooter who attacked Republican Representative Steve Scalise in 2017. There were also Supreme Court justices who were targeted… and that's without mentioning the insurrection of January 6, 2021, of unprecedented violence against American politicians. Saturday's attack reflects the extreme tensions that are polarizing the country. »
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