The assassination of prominent conservative activist Charlie Kirk has sparked vigilance over the tragedy of American political violence and escalated anxiety about the safety of public figures on both sides of the ideological spectrum.
Kirk’s murder was the latest attack and threat from President Donald Trump and members of Congress to governors and judges. Although Kirk was not an elected official, he was a close ally of the Trump administration, wielding influence as the founder of the conservative advocacy group Turning Point USA.
Follow for live coverage
“I wasn’t surprised” by Kirk’s murder, University of Maryland researcher Michael Jensen tracks such violence in a domestic terrorism database. Jensen said he saw an increase in attacks targeting what he characterizes as a “governmental agency”: legislators and candidates, as well as officers implementing immigration enforcement actions.
“You can’t say it’s coming from the left. It’s coming from the right (or) the fringe. It’s coming from anywhere,” Jensen said.
American politics has long been plagued by political violence. In the 1960s, for example, one of the most socially turbulent decades in US history, Assassin shot President John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, and civil rights leader Medgar Evers. In the next few decades, Presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan survived their attempts to live, captured by television cameras.
However, modern American life contains accelerators that were not present in previous eras. It’s the ability to easily broadcast extreme views to social media and the large audience around the world. It is a technological change that has resulted in more intense polarization and stripped away public discourse of context and nuance. As a result, many politicians have adopted these methods as well.
2010 NBC News voting data shows that 50% of Republicans at the time looked at Democrats “very” negative, while 40% of Democrats viewed Republicans negatively and “very” negatively. The NBC News poll in March 2025 shows how both figures have risen over the past 15 years, with 69% of Democrats looking at GOP very negatively, and 70% of Republicans saying they have a very negative view of Democrats.
Jensen, a researcher at the University of Maryland, said that the modern political environment, partially defined by misinformation as “hyperparty ships,” leads to “potential major” conditions of violence.
“What’s important to understand is that this is all happening in an information environment where the loudest and most vitriol voices are gaining the biggest audience,” Jensen said.
Over the past five years alone, the country has seen a steady drumbeat of violence.
The shooting at Kirk’s Utah Valley University came almost three months after gunmen killed former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, and injured Sen. John Hoffman and his wife. Two months ago, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s residence was fired up by men who suggested he was upset by the governor’s position on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Details about Charlie Kirk’s assassination
In the 2024 presidential election, Trump slightly survived the shooting during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Two months later, he is saved by a Secret Service agent who fired a gunman waiting for Trump on a golf course in Florida.
In the fall of 2022, a man broke into the home of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, trying to lure her, attacking her husband Paul Pelosi with a hammer. The previous year, on January 6th, violent mobs stormed the US Capitol to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, and the pipe bomb was found at both Democrats and Republican headquarters.
Over the past few years, law enforcement officials have also hampered attempts to harm politicians. Authorities arrested and charged a California man in 2022 for attempted murder of Supreme Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Two years ago, FBI agents thwarted a plot to lure Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Meanwhile, Democrats and Republican officials have similarly said they are facing increasing harassment and threats. Half a dozen potential candidates at the 2028 presidential contest have either experienced political violence personally or have managed responses to such conduct, including Shapiro, Whitmer, Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
More than 9,400 direct threats and statements were made to Congress, its families and staff, and the Capitol complex last year, according to the Capitol Police. Data shows that this is more than double the number in 2017. By the end of this calendar year, Capitol Police said work was on track to work through 14,000 threat assessment cases involving lawmakers.
The serious threat to federal judges doubled between 2021 and 2023, rising to 457 from 2024, according to data from the former US S Services.
Kirk’s assassin remained massive on Thursday. The archer’s identity and motives were unknown. Kirk spoke to a crowd of hundreds at Utah Valley University at the amphitheater on an open air campus.
In an interview, a former Justice Department official said it was too early to know whether Kirk’s murder could lead to a bigger spiral of political violence.
“I’m worried about violence, but I don’t have any information,” said a former DOJ official. “Please tell me who did that. Tell me what their motivations are.”
Glenn Garstell, a former national security adviser, has written extensively about online disinformation, but said society should also be interested in ways to recover from political violence.
“There have been many times in our history that have been severely divided and led to the Civil War,” he said. “I think American characters have a lot of resilience. Most people don’t like to call names. I don’t think that’s us.”
But Gerstell said he fears that the rich theories of disinformation and conspiracy on social media platforms will make it more difficult for Americans to unify now than in previous times.
“I think we can partially return due to the emergence of social media that exacerbates hatred and division,” Garstell said. “It stimulates the department. It not only promotes it, it keeps it.”
