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That was\u00a0the plea<\/a>\u00a0from one Republican congressman as he came to grips with the\u00a0assassination attempt<\/a>\u00a0against\u00a0Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a0at a political rally in the Butler Farm area where he grew up.<\/p>\n \u201cI am in a state of bewilderment of how and what has happened to the United States of America,\u201d Rep. Mike Kelly, R-PA., told The Associated Press early Sunday.<\/p>\n The shocking attempt on Trump\u2019s life has brought into stark relief the toxic climate in America\u2019s political life. While the details of the shooter\u2019s motive remain unclear, the violence is a further gauge of how what was once unacceptable, if not unthinkable, in American society has become painfully commonplace.<\/p>\n As the\u00a02024 election<\/a>\u00a0enters a crucial phase ahead of the national conventions, how the nation responds will test the first\u00a0presidential contest<\/a>\u00a0since 2020, an election that became defined by efforts to overturn Trump\u2019s defeat and the\u00a0Jan. 6, 2021, attack<\/a>\u00a0on the U.S. Capitol.<\/p>\n On Sunday, civic leaders, pastors and elected officials from President\u00a0Joe Biden<\/a>\u00a0on down\u00a0appealed to Americans for unity,<\/a>\u00a0urging an end to vitriol.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t allow this violence to be normalized,\u201d Biden said in an evening address to the nation from the Oval Office.<\/p>\n Under a charged atmosphere, the\u00a0Republican National Convention<\/a>\u00a0opens this week in Milwaukee to renominate\u00a0Trump<\/a>\u00a0to lead the ticket, while Democrats prepare for their own convention next month uncertain if the party will stick with the incumbent Biden in an expected rematch.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s rhetoric, though tempered in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, had taken on deeper and darker tones in this, his third campaign for the White House.<\/p>\n This spring, Trump who has accused migrants of \u201cpoisoning the blood of the country\u201d and\u00a0vowed to launch the largest domestic deportation operation<\/a>, told autoworkers there would be a \u201cbloodbath<\/a>\u201d in this country if he is not reelected.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we don\u2019t win, I think our country is finished,\u201d he said during the New Hampshire primary.<\/p>\n Trump has promised retribution on his political rivals, particularly those in the Justice Department after he was indicted on federal charges of\u00a0storing classified documents<\/a>\u00a0at his Mar-a-Lago home and in the\u00a0conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election<\/a>.<\/p>\n Trump also made make light of violence. When Nancy Pelosi\u2019s husband, Paul Pelosi, was\u00a0attacked by an intruder looking for the former House speaker<\/a>\u00a0at the family\u2019s San Francisco home in 2022 \u2014 beaten over the head with a hammer \u2014 Trump mocked the security fencing she had installed as insufficient.<\/p>\n Trump drew chuckles in a speech before California Republicans last year when he asked, \u201cHow\u2019s her husband doing, by the way?\u201d<\/p>\n Biden, in turn, has warned that Trump\u2019s return to power poses a grave threat to the country\u2019s civic traditions. He chose a location near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, for his\u00a0initial 2024 campaign event<\/a>, portraying the likely rematch as \u201call about\u201d whether\u00a0democracy<\/a>\u00a0can survive.<\/p>\n Addressing the nation Sunday, Biden pointed to past examples of political upheaval, including Jan. 6 and more recently harassment of election workers, and said, \u201cThere\u2019s no place in America for this kind of violence, for any violence, ever.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, one of Trump\u2019s potential vice-presidential picks, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, said on social media over the weekend that Biden\u2019s earlier rhetoric against Trump \u201cled directly\u201d to the attempted assassination.<\/p>\n And House Speaker Mike Johnson, who said it\u2019s time to \u201cturn the temperature down in this country,\u201d also singled out for blame Biden\u2019s recent comments during a call with political donors in which the president said, \u201cIt\u2019s time to put Trump in the bullseye.\u201d<\/p>\n Johnson said he knows Biden didn\u2019t literally mean Trump should be targeted, but added, \u201cthat kind of language on either side should be called out.\u201d<\/p>\n Nick Beauchamp, an associate professor of political science at Boston\u2019s Northeastern University, said there is an opportunity now for political leaders to \u201cstart framing their critiques of the others in words that explicitly denounce violence.\u201d<\/p>\n From the the 1968 killings of\u00a0American leaders<\/a>\u00a0Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. to the 1981 attack on President Ronald Reagan, to shootings of Republicans and Democrats in the past decade, the violent strain has always been part of American politics.<\/p>\n Other violent incidents have intersected more recently with the nation\u2019s political struggles in frightful ways.<\/p>\n Outside Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh\u2019s suburban home, a man with a knife and gun who\u00a0threated to kill<\/a>\u00a0the justice was arrested in 2022. Members of Congress have experienced increased security threats. And\u00a0harassment against<\/a>\u00a0elections officials from cities and states across the nation has led to a\u00a0wave of departures<\/a>\u00a0because of threats on their livelihoods.<\/p>\n Last summer, FBI agents fatally shot a Utah man who had\u00a0threatened to assassinate<\/a>\u00a0Biden and had referred to himself as a \u201cMAGA Trumper.\u201d That followed a series of drive-by shootings earlier in the year targeting Democrats in New Mexico, a startling outburst that led to criminal charges against\u00a0a failed state legislative candidate<\/a>\u00a0who had parroted Trump\u2019s rigged-election rhetoric.<\/p>\n A gunman who died in a shootout in 2022 after trying to get inside the FBI\u2019s Cincinnati office apparently went on social media and called for federal agents to be killed \u201con sight\u201d following the search at Trump\u2019s Mar-a-Lago estate.<\/p>\n Jacob Ware, a research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who focuses on domestic terrorism, said, \u201cThe warning lights have been blinking red regarding violence in this election cycle for months, if not years now.\u201d<\/p>\n As Trump took the stage Saturday evening, he had opened the rally in Pennsylvania as he often does, marveling at the \u201cbig beautiful crowd\u201d gathered to see him \u2014 and demeaning Biden\u2019s own crowds as paltry in comparison.<\/p>\n