WASHINGTON — Former Rep. Rodney Davis is among a group of nearly 150 former members of Congress who have urged current political leaders to treat the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump as a “wake-up call” on political rhetoric.
The Illinois Republican said the political violence at the Trump rally felt familiar, even though it had been more than 40 years since a sitting or former president was shot. He was in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, when the Capitol was attacked by a group of pro-Trump rioters.
And Davis was on the baseball field in 2017 when a gunman shot at GOP lawmakers, critically injuring then-Majority Whip Steve Scalise and a handful of others. Davis hoped that event might mark a turning point, or a return to a more civil form of politics.
“Unfortunately, that was wiped away in the memories a little too quickly, rather than trying to figure out how we could come together,” Davis said.
The Association of Former Members of Congress organized a letter, signed by 63 Republican and 80 Democratic former members, that encourages a cooling of political rhetoric that could lead to violence.
“Almost all of us, whether Democrat or Republican, have been subjected to threats or acts of political violence during our time serving in public office. Over the years, the rhetoric of tribalism and dehumanization has become accepted as normal,” the letter states.
“We are coming together, across party lines and ideological differences, to summon the nation’s political leadership to do everything they can and put an end to this ever-increasing escalation of rhetoric,” the letter states.
The opportunity for the conversation the former lawmakers want to start already feels like it’s slipping away. Days after the July 13 campaign rally where a shooter fired at Trump, an onslaught of national news stories pushed it off the front page.
“Obviously no one could have predicted the tumultuous three weeks we’ve had,” Peter M. Weichlein, the group’s CEO and a former Senate staffer, said in early August, after a shakeup of the Democratic ticket and more.
Lawmakers are investigating the security lapse of the Secret Service at the Trump rally shooting, security is high at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and Trump reportedly is returning to speaking at outdoor venues with a bulletproof barrier around him.
The group of former lawmakers sought to be a voice of calm during a chaotic moment and bring greater attention to an issue that’s top of mind for many of its members.
In a survey last year of former members conducted by the former members group and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, 84 percent of respondents said they were either very or somewhat concerned about the possibility of violence in the 2024 presidential election.
But the problem isn’t limited to presidential politics, and many former members said they had experienced it personally. Forty-seven percent said they or their families had received threats while they were in Congress. That number increased to 69 percent for former members who are women and/or people of color.
Val Demings, a Democratic former Florida police chief who represented the Orlando area in the House from 2017 to 2023, said she was frequently the target of racist and sexist threats during her time in law enforcement and as a member of Congress.
“I’ve developed a thick skin,” Demings said. “But what I worry about is the next generation. I mean, who would want to run?”
For these former lawmakers, the idea is to leverage their personal experience to call for change. But that’s not as simple as it sounds.
Vague calls for civility during election season tend to provoke more eye rolls than results, and some critics question whether heightened rhetoric has truly led to a surge in political violence in America.
Still, Davis and Demings agreed on the importance of projecting cross-party unity in the wake of a violent attack, though the two former lawmakers diverged when asked how we got here.
Demings named Trump — who since his rise in the lead-up to the 2016 election has repeatedly used violent rhetoric — as a catalyst for violence in American politics today. But she said leaders on both sides, including Democrats, bear some responsibility.
“The bottom line is we have to all be very careful about what we say and how we say it, because we see the tragic results,” Demings said. “It shouldn’t have happened, and we cannot allow that to happen…And every decent person, regardless of your politics, should feel that way, because we don’t want to next time.”
Davis said Trump has not turned up the temperature “any more so than [Sen.] Bernie Sanders or [former Speaker] Nancy Pelosi saying Republican policies are killing people. Which led to a nut job trying to kill me and my friends.”
“A lot of it has to do with the fact that you have politicians, more so from one party than the other, trying to always find ways to divide us Americans and separate us rather than bring us together,” Davis said. “It’s the Democrats,” he added.
