It is commonplace for Americans to assume that their country’s problems are sui generis. Since the July 13 assassination attempt against former U.S. President Donald Trump, many commentators have portrayed the event and the tensions around it as unprecedented. Others have reached for comparisons, but they have almost always been domestic—focusing, for instance, on the astounding number of assault weapons in private hands in the United States compared to the number in every other country on earth.

It is certainly true that the shooting was a uniquely horrifying American moment, albeit one that was part of a rising tide of threats. There has been a drumbeat of major violent events (or near-events) in recent years: the mob attack on the Capitol to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential vote; the shooting of Republican Congressman Steve Scalise at a congressional baseball game in 2017; the kidnapping plot against Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020. Under the radar, this dangerous environment had intensified for all other kinds of public servants, as well. Between 2016 and 2021, threats against members of Congress rose tenfold, dropping only somewhat following Trump’s presidency. Threats to federal judges have doubled since 2021. And in recent quarterly polls, a fifth of local elected officials—such as school board members and county commissioners—report that they have received violent threats.

But Americans should realize that such problems are not theirs alone: political violence is growing in many democracies. Trump’s near-death experience at the hands of a young man with no clear partisan agenda has echoes in the attempted assassination of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida last year. The year before, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was killed—the first assassination of a Japanese leader since the 1930s. In August 2023, an Ecuadorian presidential candidate was assassinated after leaving a campaign rally. And in May, a shooter attempted to murder Slovakia’s prime minister.

Current and former heads of state are not the only victims. From 2022 to 2023, France saw a 12-fold increase in violence against elected officials, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. A total of 51 candidates were physically attacked in the three weeks leading to July’s elections. Germany has had over 10,000 attacks on politicians in the last five years, and thousands more on party buildings. Mexico’s 2024 election was the deadliest yet, with 37 candidates murdered and over 800 injured. In Colombia, India, and Nigeria, violence against officials is also on the upswing.

Although each country’s violence has differing local causes, there are clear patterns that echo across countries. American political violence has much in common with that taking place in Germany and India, as well as in France’s most recent election. In all these states, a significant portion of the attacks are largely the product of radicalized partisans, often egged on by parties. Containing it requires containing these parties’ politicians.

But doing so is much easier said than done, especially in the United States. There, voters only have two real parties to choose between—and one of them is captured by a radical wing. Trump may be the most recent victim of American........

© Foreign Affairs