A cover prepared on the fly by the Time magazine a few hours after the assassination of Charlie Kirk speaks openly of an “epidemic of American political violence”. It is not an exaggeration. Unfortunately, the data confirm it.
“This event is terrifying, alarming, but not necessarily surprising,” Reuters Mike Jensen, researcher at the University of Maryland, told the Agency, who has been a trace of the acts of violence in a database on terrorism since 1970.
In the first six months of the year, the United States underwent about 150 attacks of political matrixalmost double the same period last year, said Jensen. “I think we are in a very, very dangerous situation that could easily degenerate into more widespread civil disorders if we cannot keep it under control,” said Jensen. “This could absolutely act as a fuse that would haunt others.”
Reuters has counted at least 300 cases of political violence in the United States between the attack on the Capitol of 6 January 2021 and the presidential elections of 2024, marking the most significant and prolonged increase of this violence since the 70s.
Kirk’s murder is the last of a series of high profile attacks against political leaders in the United States, including two assassination attempts against Trump during his 2024 election campaign.
The president was injured in the ear after being hit by a bullet during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024, and the authorities claim to have foiled a second attack on his life in his gonf field of West Palm Beach two months later.
The list of American politicians targeted by violence is now long.
Gabrielle Giffords, then Democratic deputy of Arizona, was hit by a bullet during a meeting with the voters in 2011 and still discounts trauma and brain trauma. Steve Scalise, republican member of the Chamber of Representatives of Louisiana, was hit by a bullet in 2017 during an event at a sports field.
In October 22, a man armed with a hammer attacked in his Californian home Paul Pelosi, husband of the democratic speaker of Nancy Pelosi representatives. In April of this year, Josh Shapiro, democratic governor of Pennsylvania, was the victim of a malicious fire in his residence in the middle of the night. Last June, Melissa Hortman, democratic member of the Minnesota state parliament, was killed in her home together with her husband in a political murder.
Targeted murders have been part of US political life for generations, from the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865 to the murders of John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy, the leader of civil rights Martin Luther King Jr and the African American activist Malcolm X in the 1960s. Ronald Reagan was also targeted by an attacker in 1981.
But the polarization of American political life had never reached today’s levels. And the unheard of and violent assault on the Capitol of Trump supporters in January 2021 is still in everyone’s memory.
“Extreme political violence is increasingly becoming the norm in our country, and the shooting against Charlie Kirk is indicative of a much larger and more widespread problem: the acts of violence are becoming more common, even without a clear ideology or motivation,” said Jon Lewis, researcher at the George Washington University program on Extremism.
“It is not to be wondered why, but only when it is the next,” he says Mattia Dilettischolar of the American political system at the Department of Communication and Social Research (Coris) of the “Sapienza” University of Rome, author of “Divisi. Politics, society and conflicts in America of the 21st century”. And he adds: “This is American politics today: sowing wind from above, and then gathering storm. It is a civil war in small doses”.
The left activist Hasan Peker, who should have participated in a debate with Kirk on September 25th, said: “It is a frightening fact. The reaction of those who will seek revenge after this violent and horrible fact will be really worrying”.
To reveal the climate, sensible words would serve at the highest levels, but Donald Trump has already accused the rhetoric of the “radical left” of Kirk’s murder. “The time has come, within the limits of the law, to infiltrate, destabilize, arrest and incarcerate all those who are responsible for this chaos,” he writes threatening the conservative activity Christopher Rufo.
The risk is that Kirk’s death becomes a pretext to extend the political persecution and accentuate the authoritarian turning point that Trump wants to give to his presidency. Meanwhile, Kirk’s killer (considered not an amateur, but an expert shooter) is still free and could hit again.
(Photo Ansa: the attack on Donald Trump on July 13, 2024 in Pennsylvania during the election campaign)
