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Notes -
Most violence happens within the ingroup. 54.3 percent or people murdered were killed by someone they knew. The same doesn't exactly hold for assassinations, but there's a trend of assassins having more in common with their targets than their targets' political enemies. Charles J. Guiteau was definitely on Garfield's "side." Lee Harvey Oswald was closer politically to Kennedy than Nixon. John Hinckley Jr was nonpolitical, but at the same time had been attempting to become an entertainer.
And given how the US presidency works-- with the designated survivor being the vice president-- this really makes perfect sense. If you hate the president, replacing him with a vice president you also hate that meanwhile becomes much more radically against you is a terrible idea. But showing "your side" that they shouldn't risk betraying your cause/better go even further in your direction makes more sense.
With all that being said, I wouldn't blame specifically trump for the assassination attempts since it's not like his rhetoric exists in a vacuum. But it's not like we're not seeing equivalent forms of radicalism in the democratic base. See: BLM, pro-palestine protestors sabotaging their own side. Trump's base just happens to be more male, more armed, and therefore more violent.
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