Translated by Federico Emanuele
The murder of Charlie Kirk is only the latest violent crime committed in the United States in the name of a particular ideological side. The trail of blood left by political violence has roots that reach back long before the killing of the right-wing influencer, who was murdered during a rally in Utah, and it seems to increasingly define the political climate in the United States. Growing ever more tense and drawn toward two completely opposite extremes of the same spectrum, the social and political landscape across the ocean finds less and less refuge in dialogue and greater comfort in the ferocity of bloody and impulsive acts, which nevertheless bring few positive practical results.
HISTORY OF AMERICAN POLITICAL VIOLENCE
Given the events of recent years in the United States, it might be reasonable to think that political violence is a phenomenon belonging only to a certain historical period of the republic, the most recent one. In reality, it has never been an anomaly in American politics, but rather one of its most recurring characteristics. It has never been an aberration; quite the opposite. Far from being an exception, political brutality has been a persistent and destructive force.
The first major episode of brutality connected to politics in American history concerns the 1804 duel between then Vice President Aaron Burr and his long-time rival Alexander Hamilton, a Founding Father and former Secretary of the Treasury. The clash, caused by political differences and insulting remarks that Hamilton allegedly directed at Burr, ended with the former’s death. At the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, duels and gunfights were very common, and the trend only deepened with the expansion of gun ownership. During the 1800s, industrial production and aggressive federal contracts promoted the circulation of an increasing increasing number of weapons. Violence and murders escalated through revolvers and automatic rifles, leading in 1865 to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, who, fresh from victory in the Civil War, was shot with a .44 caliber pistol by the famous actor and committed southerner John Wilkes Booth.
During the early twentieth century, political violence sharply increased. From the assassination of President McKinley by an anarchist activist, to the attempted murder of Theodore Roosevelt, it reached its peak in the “Red Summer” of 1919, when racial riots and clashes between white supremacists and Black communities dominated the political scene.
The 1960s and 1970s were another period of deep division. As new social movements emerged demanding inclusion and equality, the assassination of President Kennedy, the Vietnam War protests, the rise of radical left-wing groups that were part of the so-called “third wave of terrorism”, and the murders of civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X contributed to a climate where political violence became almost normalized. Public tolerance for attacks was so widespread that when a small bomb exploded in a Bronx movie theater in the 1970s, the audience refused to leave so they could keep watching the film.
THE GIFFORDS MURDER AND ITS IMPLICATIONS
L’8 gennaio 2011 la deputata Gabby Giffords democratica dell’Arizona fu colpita da un’arma da fuoco durante un incontro con gli elettori a Tucson. Durante l’attacco rimasero uccise sei persone, tra cui una bambina di nove anni, Christina Taylor Green. L’omicidio di Giffords rappresentò uno spartiacque fondamentale nella storia della violenza politica americana. Anche se in seguito alla sparatoria sia Democratici che Repubblicani chiesero un raffreddamento della retorica politica e un ritorno al bipartitismo, l’episodio segnò un ritorno del terrorismo idelogico negli states, che non ha fatto altro che aumentare da allora, arrivando a raggiungere livelli che non si vedevano da decenni.
On January 8, 2011, Democratic Congresswoman Gabby Giffords of Arizona was shot during a meeting with constituents in Tucson. Six people were killed in the attack, including a nine-year-old girl, Christina Taylor Green. The Giffords shooting represented a major turning point in the history of American political violence. Although both Democrats and Republicans called for a cooling of political rhetoric and a return to bipartisanship after the shooting, the event marked the return of ideological terrorism in the United States, which has only grown since then, reaching levels not seen in decades.
Episodes of political violence began to rise sharply in 2016, during Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign. Almost exactly ten years after the Arizona congresswoman’s shooting, political brutality perhaps reached its peak with the attack by around two thousand far-right extremists and Trump supporters on the Capitol. Attempting to prevent a joint session of Congress from certifying the 2020 presidential election results, the assault caused nine deaths, millions of dollars in damage, and led to Trump’s second impeachment, as well as a lasting threat to American institutions. In January 2025, upon returning to the White House, Trump pardoned those responsible for the attack.
With the Kirk murder in September of this year, the United States has now recorded more high-profile assassinations or attempted assassinations in the past 14 months - including two attempts on President Trump, the killing of a Democratic congressman from Minnesota in June, and an arson attack on the home of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro - than in any comparable period since 1968.
Although right-wing extremism has been responsible for the vast majority of victims - about 75–80% of deaths from domestic terrorism in the United States since 2001 - 2025 marks the first time in over thirty years that left-wing attacks have outnumbered those from the opposite side. This worrying trend seems to have drawn the Trump administration’s attention to domestic terrorism for the first time. Just days after the Kirk killing, as the President vowed to target the radical left and Antifa protests, the Department of Justice removed from its website one of its own studies showing that since 1990, right-wing extremism had committed far more ideologically motivated murders than either the left or radical Islamist extremists.
A DIVIDED SOCIETY
Until the 1990s, many Americans belonged to a variety of identity groups. Today, however, Americans are instead divided into two large macro identity groups: the Democrats, who tend to live in cities, are more likely to belong to minorities, to be women, and to have no religious affiliation; and the Republicans, who generally live in rural or suburban areas and are more likely to be white, male, Christian, and conservative. Those with cross-cutting identities (such as Black Christians or Republican women) generally align themselves with the identities that best fit their political affiliation. Political scientist Lilliana Mason has shown that greater homogeneity within groups, combined with weaker ties to other communities, encourages the creation of clear boundaries between “us” and “them,” setting the stage for conflict. When multiple identities become aligned, undermining any one of them can trigger feelings of humiliation and anger. Such emotions are amplified by political differences, but they are not limited to politics alone. They reflect real cultural and belief-based divisions that lie at the heart of conflicts in the United States.
Violence rarely emerges in isolation. It takes root and finds support in the language that is used. In recent years, American politics, traditionally highly theatrical, has been filled with rhetoric that dehumanizes the opposing side, labeling opponents as “enemies,” “traitors,” or worse. This has fueled an already deeply polarized society, increasingly inclined toward confrontation.
A 2023 Reuters poll found that about 20% of both Republicans and Democrats consider violence an acceptable means to achieve “their idea of a better society.” What is happening in the United States is that violence, especially when tied to an ideology, no longer provokes fear. The public’s reaction to acts of extreme brutality depends not only on how much media coverage an event receives, but also on a growing process of desensitization and normalization. Dark and violent episodes are increasingly seen not only as inevitable, but as legitimate tools for pursuing political goals.
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