Is America on the brink? Since the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, the United States has been watching, in amazement, an almost unprecedented rise in violence in politics. In a quasi-premonitory poll conducted between June 20 and 24, 2024 by a think tank at the University of Chicago, approximately 10% of American adults – 26 million people – would be ready to support the use of force to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president. And 7% – or 18 million people – agree to support the use of violence, this time to restore Donald Trump to the White House. Increasingly divided, increasingly violent, American politics and its most fervent supporters are engaged in a spiral with consequences that are difficult to assess. To get a clearer picture, L’Express interviewed William Howell, professor of political science at the University of Chicago and co-author of Presidents, Populism, and the Crisis of Democracy (Ed. University of Chicago Press).
L’Express: After the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, are the United States more divided than ever?
William Howell: A moment like this past Saturday presents an opportunity: for a country to take a moment, to “turn down the heat,” and to come together around the opportunity that is before us. How the country will take that moment is unclear to me. Certainly, the current campaign is a divisive one that is only becoming more divisive as Election Day approaches. We are faced with two candidates who represent two very clear and different choices for the future. These two factions are clearly at odds, with a lack of trust and anger particularly evident among the leadership of both parties. It may be counterintuitive, but I think the general public is much more moderate than most of our politicians. But today, there is no guarantee that this center will continue to exist. We are in a very troubled period in American politics.
Donald Trump is gathering around him extremely convinced activists… Some members of the Republican Party now see Trump as a “quasi-religious figure…”
You are talking about the most convinced! The people you find at Trump’s political rallies are not the most moderate, and are part of his base. For them, Trump cannot be wrong. He has no flaws. They have integrated the most aggressive part of his rhetoric, his most extreme positions and do not symbolize the majority of what American citizens think. This is seen in the various polls on public policy: when people are asked how much the minimum wage should be, they generally answer between $11 and $13 an hour. This answer is an average, which is found across the political spectrum. You will not find drastic variation between Republicans and Democrats. These similarities are found on a good number of subjects. This does not mean that there are no extreme positions. The latter are indeed in the public space, but occupy a disproportionate place in the media, while they do not represent the public opinion of the country.
So it would be the media’s doing?
It would be very reductive to think that way. Take the example of rallies. A rally is not simply an effort to rally supporters for Donald Trump and celebrate his candidacy. It is also an event intended for television, a spectacle. The campaign team has spent a lot of time building the imagery, the scenography, creating a compelling media narrative so that the public consumes the media related to this event. So that they remember it and buy into a story: in this case, the unity and enthusiasm that Trump’s candidacy would generate. This narrative is not conditioned by social networks, by disinformation or by the media. It comes directly from within the campaign team. It is a political narrative as old as presidential campaigns have existed: it is called shaping public opinion. Yes, the current media changes, the advent of social networks, of a conservative channel, Fox News, totally rallied to Trump, have contributed to this deleterious climate. But it would be ill-advised to explain the reason for the fractures that cross our politics only by pointing to the media. Much deeper forces are ploughing our public debate.
How do you explain the deep division that seems to exist between the elites – very polarized – and the majority of the public – rather centrist and moderate?
This is one of the central puzzles of American politics. Unfortunately, there is no single right answer, and many political scientists are now trying to understand why. I believe one of them is rooted in a great imbalance at the heart of our current politics. The more fractured the public debate becomes, the more expensive it becomes to enter politics. I am not just talking about money, but also about moral issues: Who wants to subject their family to such a political environment? Who wants to be scrutinized by the media on a daily basis, to be subjected to perpetual vitriol? The price of entry is becoming higher and higher, and the rewards are slim: with public power paralyzed by partisan fractures, it is increasingly difficult to get results. In the end, you run for office by taking a lot of risks for little results. In this context, who can take that path? It seems to me that the more moderate people, those who are more inclined to find pragmatic solutions, are driven to give up because of this cost of entry. On the other hand, those who are more extreme, who are more interested in having a platform than in solving our problems, are more inclined to run. The snake is biting its tail and polarization is increasing.
Can we in this case speak of a crisis of representative democracy?
The positions that our current leaders are taking are out of step with the views of most moderate Americans. The current presidential campaign and the assassination attempt on Donald Trump will further divert the debate from the issues that are at the heart of the American presidential election. Who the next president is will matter greatly. On the one hand, it could lead to a world where taxes and regulations are lowered, where police presence is increased, and where many undocumented Americans are deported. That is Donald Trump’s agenda. On the other hand, it could lead to a continuation of the policies of Joe Biden, who has a very different approach to these issues. Yet these issues are not being debated. The questions that concern us are about Joe Biden’s age or whether or not God chose Donald Trump to be our next president, since he miraculously survived his assassination attempt. We are not talking about visions for the country. We are not talking about our future. I am very concerned to see that the health of our democracy – which is nevertheless worrying – and the challenges we will face in the years to come are not being addressed.
Could this examination of conscience be achieved through a change in the Constitution?
It’s very difficult to change the Constitution in the United States. There’s a lot of discussion going on around the country about changing the voting rules in the states, about developing, about making changes in the legislative process. I don’t know what those discussions are going to lead to. But I think we’re going to have to rethink how parties work, how our political institutions work, and how our elections work if we’re going to have a healthier, more sustainable space in the future.
Trump called for unity after his assassination attempt. Do you think this statement can ease the polarization in the American political class?
We’ll see. But I don’t think there’s a huge appetite in his party to favor the center. Look at the nomination of his running mate, Senator J.D. Vance. It’s one of the most striking testimonies of Trump’s political project relative to his base. He didn’t choose someone who was a centrist. He chose an ultra-conservative, populist vice president with a very strong position on immigration and the war in Ukraine. Other than his statements after Saturday’s events, there’s no indication that Trump is going to change his approach to politics.
The specter of civil war has resurfaced with the events of Saturday. Do you think the United States is close to a tipping point of this magnitude?
No. The United States is not on the brink of a civil war. There is an ongoing investigation into what really happened on July 13. But let’s be reasonable: that doesn’t mean Americans are ready to take up arms and fight each other. That said, we should be concerned about the rise in political violence that is taking place on the fringes of our public debate. We are witnessing a reshaping of our political spectrum, which will have to be questioned. Being a Republican today is not the same as being a Republican in 2014, just ten years ago! There is also a continuing failure of our political class to respond to the demands of the American public, regardless of party. These problems are profound and will not be solved by the arrival of a providential man, a hero, whoever he may be.
The risk of civil war was recently raised in France by the president himself, in the midst of legislative electionsHow can we explain that this concept emerged in the two old democracies that are France and the United States?
I do not see a civil war coming in France or the United States. That being said, our two countries are wracked by deep divisions. In France, during the last legislative elections, your center held, at the cost of a considerable effort. This does not mean, however, that the possibility of the extreme right, of radicalism, is fading away. In the United States, we are facing the increase in inequalities between the rich and the poor, the feeling of exclusion and downgrading associated with globalization, technological changes, and the migration issue. All of this questions the populations and their institutions. This last point is crucial: we must question their viability. In my view, current American policy cannot be sustained in the long term. It is not sustainable.
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