• The Trump rally shooting was unsurprising, says Rachel Kleinfeld, an expert on political violence.
  • That's because lawmakers and their incendiary comments created a climate of violence, Kleinfeld said.
  • She named Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert as examples of people who helped "normalized violence."

Political leaders like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep. Lauren Boebert have created an environment in the US where violence is normalized, a political violence expert said in the wake of former President Donald Trump's attempted assassination.

Rachel Kleinfeld, an expert on political violence, told Politico she thinks it's "political leaders like Marjorie Taylor Greene or Lauren Boebert or so on" who've been "amplifying the extremes" in the country.

Kleinfeld, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, added that she thought the best way to handle this rhetoric is to vote out people who try to "normalize violence." Per Politico, part of Kleinfeld's proposal would be to eliminate political primaries and go straight to a general election.

"When you have political leaders like Marjorie Taylor Greene or Lauren Boebert or so on, who are elected with less than 10% of their voting public because it's just a small primary base, then you're allowing more extreme positions to put political leaders in place, who then continue normalizing violence," Kleinfeld said.

"When you change those incentive structures and force people to run in a general electorate, they can't be so incendiary," Kleinfeld added.

She also told Politico that she was not surprised that the attempt on Trump's life happened.

"Sadly, I am not surprised — given the reality of a tenfold rise in threats against members of Congress, increases in violence and threats against everyone, from people running for school board to state legislators, the doubling of serious threats against judges," she said to Politico.

"An attempted assassination on a presidential candidate was almost just a matter of time," she added.

Trump was shot at on Saturday during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. He ducked for cover after gunshots went off but was later seen with streaks of blood on his face.

After the shooting, Greene blamed the incident on the Democratic Party.

"The Democrat party is flat out evil, and yesterday they tried to murder President Trump," she wrote on X.

Boebert paid condolences to Trump rally shooting victim Cory Comperatore, saying: "Corey should be here with us today, going to many more Trump rallies!

It's notable that Greene and Boebert have been two of the GOP's loudest advocates for guns and have been known to make controversial statements.

After the 2022 Uvalde school shooting, which left 19 students and two teachers dead, Greene said that she believed children should receive firearms training in school to protect themselves against shooters.

She also said in December 2022 that if she had planned the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill, the people charging into the Capitol "would've been armed" and "would have won."

Boebert, meanwhile, previously owned a gun-themed restaurant called "Shooters Grill" in Rifle, Colorado.

In the restaurant, waitresses carried guns as part of their uniform, and customers could order dishes like the "M16 burrito" and a "bump stock corned beef hash."

On the morning of the January 6 riot, Boebert also tweeted: "This is 1776," a comment that's since been interpreted as a move to rile up the mob outside the Capitol.

On Sunday — less than a day after the Trump rally shooting — senior lawmakers like House Speaker Mike Johnson asked people to cool it with the heated rhetoric.

"We've got to turn the rhetoric down," Johnson said on Sunday. "We've got to turn the temperature down in this country."

"We need leaders of all parties, on both sides, to call that out and make sure that happens so that we can go forward and maintain our free society that we all are blessed to have," he added.

Trump and Biden have also called for unity in the US after the shooting.

Representatives for Trump, Greene and Boebert did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.

Read the original article on Business Insider