Reflecting (Again) on the Political Violence Plaguing the United States

Political violence isn’t something new.  Julius Caesar can attest to that.  But that doesn’t make it less shocking, unjust, or worrisome when it happens in real time.  The reasons for the violence vary.  How we respond and emerge from tragedy determines how long this cycle will continue and how much weaker or stronger we will be in its wake.

Over the past ten years or so, the number of threats and violent acts against elected officials, candidates, and political figures has exploded within the United States.  And let me be abundantly clear: the threats come equally from both sides of the aisle.

In the nearly three years I was at the United States Capitol Police from 2020-2023, the team I oversaw helped to investigate over 20,000 threats against members of Congress (by my count, 23,284 to be exact).  Republicans and Democrats, in equal measure, received threats.  This is not just a problem with the right, and the left needs to acknowledge that.

The 20,000+ threats that my team and I helped to investigate are only the number of threats against elected officials at the federal level in one branch of the government.  That number does not account for all the threats received by appointees in the other two branches, nor does it account for the threats against down ballot officials or, as yesterday has shown, the threats against unelected/unappointed political figures.

The threat, at times, is intensified by the very individuals who are their targets, as we likely saw with the assassination of Charlie Kirk.  Certain political leaders appear oblivious to the fact that their own rhetoric and behavior can incite violence not only against themselves but also against their peers. 

The assassination of Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman less than three months ago, the assassination attempt of President Trump, the arson attack on the Pennsylvania governor’s home, the attempted stabbing of Representative Lee Zeldin, are all recent examples of just how prominent political violence and threats have become in this county.  That’s not to mention the killings and deaths that were not politically motivated, such as the killing of the United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson—by all accounts, his killer was mentally ill and had deep personal grievances—that are celebrated by politically-motivated groups and individuals. 

Make no mistake, Charlie Kirk was an asshole.  I struggle to find something positive to say about him.  He had nice hair, I guess.  He was a personality that prioritized degrading others, sowing discord, and fostering a climate of hate.   

When you really think about it, it’s not at all surprising that the man who put out so much hate into the world died in an act of hatred.  In that sense, he reaped what he sowed. 

That, however, doesn’t justify his killing.  A reason does not exist to validate political violence.  Full stop.

The shooting has left children fatherless.  It has left his young wife a widow.  His death is senseless and sad.  If you fail to comprehend or agree with that last sentence, you are in desperate need of some self-reflection.

What maybe bothers me as much as the shooting itself is the nonsense that has followed in its quake.  While members of Congress and other political leaders have appropriately denounced the violence, many everyday Americans have not followed suit.  Conspiracies about his death abound.  “Who is the person behind Charlie Kirk and why is he making what appears to be a ‘signal’ immediately preceding Charlie being shot. This is NOT a normal gesture any person would ever make,” wrote one person on X.  On the other side of the political spectrum, his death is being celebrated by some.  On TikTok, one person posted (and had since taken down) a video of him cheerfully singing on a megaphone, “We got Charlie in the neck.” 

Today is September 11^th and after that attack, we came together as a country.  We came together to heal and to unify against a common enemy.  The difference today is that as a country, we will not pull together to denounce this tragic event.  What we see instead is a lot of finger-pointing and more of the rhetoric that got us here in the first place. 

Without a doubt, we also have a common enemy today as well, but because the enemy is not tangible—it’s not a country, a group, or a person—we struggle to name it and to strategize how to defeat it.  It is a faceless force, multifaceted, coming from many sources, but one that is just as damaging to our country, if not more so.  It is designed to make us turn against ourselves to make us weaker.  And the enemy is winning.

How do we defeat this adversary?  It starts with acknowledging we have a problem and that the problem isn’t the other side.  It is all of us and the role each one of us plays in perpetuating our continued political divisions.  By all accounts, regardless of what you thought of Charlie Kirk, his death was a tragedy.  It is a failure of this country and our fellow citizens not to uniformly recognize that as fact and to pause, reflect, and then have the courage to try to make this country and our individual worlds better. 

This moment right now should be the impetus for us to recognize that we do indeed have a problem.  But it, unfortunately, is not, leaving this cycle of rhetoric and violence to continue.  I’ve already written about political violence on Substack once before.  I’d like to think this piece will be my last on the topic, but I suspect it will not be.

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