"Our nation is shattered (...) Nothing I say can unite us as a country. Nothing I say now can fix it. Nothing I say can bring back Charlie Kirk. Our hearts are broken. We mourn with his family, with his friends, we mourn as a nation (...) We desperately need leaders, but more importantly, we need every person to reflect on where we are and where we want to be. I pray that those who hated what Charlie Kirk stood for will leave social media and the pen, I pray that all of us, everyone, will try to find a way to stop hating our fellow countrymen." With this statement, just a few hours after the murder of the conservative activist, Utah Governor Spencer Cox summed up one of the major problems facing the United States. Perhaps the most serious.
The tension in the USA is enormous, the polarization unstoppable. There are incompatible views of the world, politics, freedom, and peace. There is a lot of anger, frustration, and growing fear. There are soldiers in the streets, inflammatory rhetoric on social media, recurring mentions of civil war, fascism, years of lead, or the end of democracy. "Less than 2% of Americans believe that political assassination is acceptable, but citizens believe that almost a third of their opponents support partisan murder," says a recent study from Princeton. Phantom enemies and trivialization. Luigi Mangione, who shot a manager in the back, became a cultural icon for the left, the subject of songs, odes, and jokes with many fans. Just like social media is filled with videos of anonymous people celebrating Kirk's death.
This week, the media was filled with condemnations and calls for calm from politicians of all stripes. But phones were also filled with anger, indignation, calls for repression and punishment. And massive lists with addresses of ideological rivals. "We cannot respond to violence with violence, we cannot respond to hatred with hatred," said the Governor of Utah on Friday. "This is a turning point."
"Political violence, regardless of parties or ideologies, constitutes a direct attack on the foundations of democracy and the rule of law; it does not seek to persuade, but to intimidate; not to debate, but to destroy. In all cases, it erodes public trust, undermines our common institutions, and replaces reasoned discourse with fear and coercion," states a press release from The Lincoln Project, an organization dedicated to the preservation, protection, and defense of democracy.
According to data from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, domestic terrorism incidents increased by 357% between 2013 and 2021. According to a study by the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, more than 250 people have been prosecuted for threatening nearly 200 federal officials, legislators, executives, and judicial officials in the country between 2001 and 2023. The average of these threats increased by 400% between 2017 and 2023, going from four threats per year to over 20.
Princeton University's Bridging Divides Initiative has tracked over 250 incidents of threats and harassment against local public officials in more than 40 states during the first half of 2025, marking a 9% increase compared to the same period in 2024. The Capitol Police reported in 2024 that that year had broken the record for threats.
According to the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, which compiles a global database, most political violence in the United States is committed by individuals who do not belong to any formal organization. As seems to have been the case with Tyler Robinson, the suspect in Kirk's murder, or the young man who shot at Trump. But this does not prevent ideological hatred and widespread mistrust of organizations or parties.
"Ideas that were once limited to fringe groups now appear in traditional media. Ideas of supremacy, militias, and conspiracy theories are spread through gaming websites, YouTube, and blogs, while ambiguous language of memes, slang, and jokes blurs the line between provocation and incitement to violence, normalizing radical ideologies and activities. These changes have created a new reality: millions of Americans willing to exercise, support, or justify political violence," laments Rachel Kleinfeld of the Carnegie Endowment.
When asked in June if he planned to call Minnesota Governor Tim Walz after the murder of two state officials and their families to offer his condolences and a message, President Trump said no, that it was a "waste of time." Other Republican leaders mocked what happened on social media, as Trump has done time and time again over the years without mercy regarding the brutal attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband in their home.
In an attempt to go against the tide, the Young Democrats and Young Republicans of Connecticut issued a joint statement this week offering prayers for Charlie Kirk and condemning political violence, a small gesture they hope can multiply. Hoffmann's family, murdered in June for his ideas by a man who carries a list of Democratic politicians and abortion supporters, has tried to call for calm. "America is broken, and political violence jeopardizes our lives. Kirk's murder is the latest act in a drama that our country cannot continue to accept. Leaders must not only tone down their rhetoric but also denounce the aggressiveness and extremism that endangers our republic," they urged in a statement praying for Kirk, his family, and the entire country. "When people stop talking, that's when violence arises, that's when civil war occurs," Kirk said in one of his most famous videos, known as much for his debates as for his polarizing and radical populist speeches.
"The moments following a political crime test a nation's democratic health by revealing the character of its elites. After the assassination attempt on Trump, leaders from both parties cooled the situation by issuing unified condemnations that reinforced the taboo against violence. Today, key political figures are doing the opposite. Instead of seeking unity, we witness the cynical performance of a martyr and a call to arms. Instead of shared grief, there are accusations of collective guilt, painting half the country as murderers," wrote Sean Westwood, director of the Polarization Research Lab at Dartmouth, yesterday.
Political scientist Robert Pape, from the University of Chicago and much more pessimistic, believes that the USA has entered "the era of violent populism," that there is little that can be done, and that it will only get worse. As argued in Foreign Affairs, "lAmerican politics are at historically high levels of violence, both on the right and the left, which have been escalating." A mix of the "steady weakening of crucial democratic institutions," the "anti-democratic tendencies" of various groups, the fear of white conservatives amid an unprecedented demographic and social transformation that will lead in a couple of decades to them no longer being the majority.
There are also the radicalizing effects of partisan manipulation of electoral districts and polarization in general, fueled by algorithms and media interests. But for Pape, there is above all a predominant structural dynamic driving the new era of violence. Therefore, he explains, the main danger for the US "does not lie in any uncontrolled technology or in any marginal paramilitary group. It is not economic grievances. It is not even Trump, who is both a symptom of what afflicts the United States and a cause. The greatest source of danger comes from a cultural clash over the nature of American identity, one with profound implications for who can become a citizen. Its actors are not isolated radicals, but ordinary Americans." According to research conducted by his team at the University of Chicago, "tens of millions of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents believe that political violence is acceptable. Many belong to the middle and upper class, with decent housing and education," as indicated in a highly cited essay.
And the problem is that societies that do not condemn violence are more likely to generate it. "The US may not be on the brink of a total civil war, but it is entering an era of deadly conflicts, full of politically motivated riots, attacks against minorities, and even murders," he predicted a few months ago. What happened this week is exactly what he had in mind. "They have no idea of the fire they have ignited; the cry of this widow will resonate throughout the world as a war cry. They have no idea of what they have unleashed in this entire country and in this world," anticipated Erika Kirk, the murdered man's wife, this past weekend.