Political violence is even worse in Europe
The assassination attempt on Donald Trump stunned the U.S. and has opened debate about dysfunctions in America’s political culture. Troubling too should be the reality that America isn’t alone.
Political violence is reappearing across the democratic world, if it ever went away. The roll call of serious cases takes you aback when you put it all in one place. Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico shot in May (he survived).
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe murdered in 2022. Two sitting members of the British Parliament killed in just over five years—Jo Cox in 2016, David Amess in 2021. A local-government leader in the German state of Hesse, Walter Lübcke, murdered in 2019.
And others. Then there are the assaults. In Germany alone: Matthias Ecke, a Social Democrat seeking re-election to the European Parliament, was beaten up in Dresden in May; a Green Party worker was attacked around the same time, allegedly by the same perpetrators.
Former Berlin Mayor Franziska Giffey was attacked in a library a few days later. The same week, two members of parliament from the far-right Alternative for Germany party, known as AfD, were assaulted at an event in Stuttgart; an antifa (far-left) group claimed responsibility. Across Germany, authorities tallied 206 complaints of violence against politicians in 2019, 247 in 2020, 288 in 2021, 183 in 2022, 234 in 2023.
Following a mass shooting at a congressional baseball practice, an assassination attempt on a Supreme Court justice, the Jan. 6 riot and other instances, it’s impossible for Americans not to worry about a return to the chaotic and violent mid-20th century. Such concerns in Europe are worse, because that previous era was worse, too.
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