2026-05-21T05:09:08Zhttps://keep.lib.asu.edu/oai/request

oai:keep.lib.asu.edu:node-2017902025-06-24T17:59:24Zoai_pmh:alloai_pmh:repo_items

201790 https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.2.N.201790 http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0 2025-05 38 pages Caballero, Michael Niebuhr, Robert Lohse, Paul Barrett, The Honors College Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies, Sch School of Politics and Global Studies On July 13th, 2024, there was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump during the 2024 presidential campaign at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. In the ensuing days, I would have personal conversations with dozens of people about what happened that day and ask one simple question: Do you think it was real or fake? A pattern quickly started to appear. Every person I asked who was white would answer, real, while every person of color would answer, fake. So then I began to wonder to myself, is race a determining factor in believing or disbelieving the assassination attempt? To help answer this question, I would conduct anonymous, in-depth interviews with people who did not know me personally from all across the country, of incredibly diverse backgrounds. I found that race correlates with skepticism of the event, but through the leading common factor of mistrust in the government. People of color consistently expressed deeper historical reasons as to why they did not trust the government and why they did not believe the official narrative of the event. This research seeks to understand how race shapes our experiences and understanding of major historical events and proposes that more research and study must be conducted to truly understand the sharp differences in beliefs about conspiracy theories among different ethnic groups. Donald Trump Butler Pennsylvania Race Assassination Attempt Election Rally 2024 Is Race a Determining Factor in believing the assassination attempt of Donald Trump?