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This is going to be an online meetup using Zoom. If you've never used Zoom before, don't worry — it's easy to use and free to join.

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IS POLITICAL VIOLENCE INCREASING IN AMERICA - AND IF SO, WHAT SHOULD WE DO ABOUT IT?

INTRODUCTION:

This is an updated version of a meetup we held back in Feb. 2022, albeit with a new 1st section that instead of addressing the anti-police riots of 2020 and storming of the Capitol on 1/6/21 addresses the ongoing debates about a recent rise in political violence in the wake of the shooting of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk while speaking on the campus of Utah Valley University on Wed., Sept. 10th. This shooting happened the same day that a 16-year-old in Evergreen, CO shot & injured two of his classmates then took his own life after apparently being radicalized by far-right content online. These are just the latest of a string of political violence this year, with some previous notable incidents as follows:

Kirk's murder comes about 2 weeks after the murder of a Ukrainian refugee, Iryna Zarutska, on August 22nd while riding a train in Charlotte, NC by a mentally-ill black man who allegedly twice said on video, “I got that white girl.” This received heavy coverage in conservative media and is reminiscent over the debate over why Darrell Brooks Jr. wasn't charged with a hate crime for the Waukesha Christmas parade attack which killed 6 people and injured 62 others two days after the Rittenhouse trial verdict in Nov. 2021, despite plenty of anti-white posts on social media. It's reignited a debate over double-standards with the ways the mainstream media reports interracial violence and what gets officially counted as a "hate crime" in an era when hate crimes are officially on the rise. It should be pointed out that unlike terrorism, hate crimes are mostly not murders or attempted murders but rather vandalism, harassment & simple assault - in 2020, there were only 22 murders out of 7,750 hate crime offenses.

We should also note that although violent crimes with a clear political or racial motive garner lots of media attention, they are much more rare than those without any obvious ideological motive. To put things in perspective, in 2024, the FBI reported 16,935 murders in the U.S., so these high-profile incidents of political & racial violence will almost certainly account for a fraction of 1% of this year's total homicides. And overall, the crime news isn't all bad, in fact it shows big improvement - the U.S. murder rate in 2024 fell to 5.0 per 100K which was a 14.9% decrease from 2023, and the homicide rate continued to decline in the first half of 2025, lowering the overall rate in the U.S. to a level it hasn't seen in a decade - although some cities are still seeing higher homicide rates than they did in the first half of 2019.

So what should we make of all this?

In the first section of our discussion, we'll start trying to assess whether political & racial violence has been risen to heights unseen since the late 1960s && early 1970s as some pundits have suggested, and if so whether the violence is disproportionately coming from the left or the right side of the political spectrum. We'll also look at public opinion polls that might help us gauge whether there's a rise in a broader sense that violence is sometimes justified in the pursuit of political aims. We'll also touch upon how much trust we should put in official numbers from studies by NGOs like New America, a Washington research center that claimed in 2015 that in the years after 9/11, nearly twice as many Americans were killed by far-right extremists than by radical Muslims.

In the second section, we'll try to assess whether racial violence is also reaching a peak not seen in 50 years, and if so whether the violence is disproportionately coming from whites or non-whites. We'll also look at public opinion polls that might help us gauge how Americans views on race & ethnicity have shifted in recent years in a way that might signal a growing sense of division that could lead violence. Once again, we'll touch upon how much trust we should put in official numbers from left-wing advocacy groups like the ADL & SPLC.

In the third part of the discussion, we'll address the sociological & political science research into the effects of political violence on public opinion and public policy, as well as how political violence compares with non-violent forms of protests. In particular, we'll focus on the research of Herbert Haines, Erica Chenoweth and Omar Wasow.

In the fourth part, we'll look at some theories that try to explain the cyclical nature of political violence and we'll address the chances of a serious breakdown in law & order in the U.S. which the scholars Peter Turchin & Barbara F. Walter see this as a serious possibility, and we'll contrast this with some reasons why other scholars like Sam Harris & Richard Hanania think that an extreme political calamity like a "Second Civil War" or collapse of the U.S. government is unlikely, at least in the near future.

RELEVANT MATERIAL FROM PAST MEETUPS:

Back in May of 2017, we had 4 meetups on political violence from which some of the links in today's meetup outline are drawn. The 1st was entitled "The Fuzzy Epistemology of Ideological Violence" and dealt with the difficulty of measuring political violence due to trouble ascertaining a suspect's motives in many cases and distinguishing terrorism, hate crimes, arson & political/race riots from the much larger pool of similar type of non-ideological violence.

The 2nd was entitled "Media Bias, Hate Hoaxes & Terrorism Panics" and dealt with the debate over selection media coverage of certain types of ideological violence, the problems of hate crime hoaxes, the psychological impact of terrorism & hate crime reports, and whether media coverage of these types of crimes can make them worse.

The 3rd was entitled "The Psychology & Ethics of Political Violence" and and dealt with psychological explanations for why people become terrorists, whether violence is ever justified to stop "hate speech", and whether political violence poses a broader danger to society by eroding the "rule of law" and the state's "monopoly on violence".

And the 4th was entitled "The Tactics & Patterns of Political Violence" and looked at the research by Herbert Haines, Erica Chenoweth, Omar Wasow, and Peter Turchin linked below.

Back in Oct. 2021, we had a meetup entitled "Can We Predict Geopolitical Conflict?" In Part 3, we looked at how one might be able to predict when civil unrest could lead to a military coup or popular revolt, and in Part 4 we looked at how one might be able to predict when social tensions within a society could lead to civil war or genocide.

Back in June 2021, Braver Angels hosted a debate entitled "Violence in the Political Process" on whether the threat of violent resistance against oppression by citizens is a crucial check on government tyranny or a grave threat to liberal democracy.

In Jan. 2021, the Skeptics hosted a discussion entitled "Bad History & Our Political Crisis" on why analogies between today & either Weimar Germany in the 1920s or America in the 1850s are flawed, and looked at critiques of Neil Howe's "Fourth Turning" and Peter Turchin's "Ages of Discord".

In June 2022, the Skeptics hosted a discussion entitled "Is 'Christian Nationalism' a Real Threat?" where they looked at what sociologists & psychologists call the "construct validity" of "Christian Nationalism" and then moved on to evaluating the research that linked it with COVID denialism, Trump support, belief in QAnon conspiracy theories, and right-wing terrorism.

In July 2022, the Skeptics hosted a discussion entitled "Is Left-Wing Extremism a Real Threat?" where they looked at construct validity of "left-wing authoritarianism" before moving on to analyze the effects of the anti-police protests & riots in 2020 and the prevalence of left-wing terrorists the FBI classifies as "anarchist violent extremists" (AVEs) and "Black Identity Extremists" (BIEs).

DIRECTIONS ON HOW TO PREPARE FOR OUR DISCUSSION:

Unlike most of my discussion outlines, I haven't included any videos this time because I couldn't find any that were succinct enough and empirically-based in their analysis. Thus the articles you see linked below are intended to give you a basic overview of some of the major debates over the apparent rise in political & racial violence over the last decade in America. As usual, I certainly don't expect you to read all the articles prior to attending our discussion. I've included some brief summaries of the articles in the 3rd & 4th sections to help our members quickly get the gist without having to read all of them.

In terms of the discussion format, my general idea is that we'll address the topics in the order presented here. I've listed some questions under each section to stimulate discussion. We'll do our best to address most of them, as well as whatever other questions our members raise. I figure we'll spend about 30 minutes on each section.

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I. HAS POLITICAL VIOLENCE (AND SUPPORT FOR IT) RISEN OVER THE LAST DECADE - AND IF SO, WHICH DEMOGRAPHICS HAVE THE HIGHER RATES OF RADICALIZATION?

  • WHY IS IT HARD TO ACCURATELY GAUGE THE LEVEL OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE? SHOULD WE FOCUS ON MURDERS WHICH SHOW NO CLEAR SPIKE IN RECENT YEARS (ONCE 2016 PULSE NIGHTCLUB SHOOTING IS EXCLUDED), OR COUNT ARRESTS & PROSECUTIONS FROM PLOTS (SOME FOILED) & THREATS OF VIOLENCE AGAINST PUBLIC OFFICIALS WHICH DO SHOW A RECENT SPIKE?
  • JUDGING FROM THE STATS PRESENTED IN THE ECONOMIST & CATO ARTICLES BELOW, IS IT ACCURATE TO SAY THAT RIGHT-WING ATTACKS TEND TO CAUSE MORE DEATHS IN RECENT YEARS THAN ISLAMIST ATTACKS, OR DOES MEGAN McARDLE'S CRITIQUE OF THE 2015 NEW AMERICA STUDY SUGGEST "RIGHT-WING ATTACKS" MAY BE PADDED OUT WITH WHITE CRIMINALS WITH NO CLEAR POLITICAL MOTIVE WHILE SOME JIHADIST ATTACKS (DC BELTWAY SNIPERS) ARE IGNORED?
  • WHAT SHOULD WE MAKE OF THE FACT THAT IF THE DEATH TOLL FROM FAR-RIGHT ATTACKS ONLY OUTNUMBER ISLAMIST ATTACKS 2-TO-1, THAT MUST MEAN THE RADICALIZATION RATE IS FAR HIGHER AMONG AMERICAN MUSLIMS WHO ONLY ACCOUNT FOR ~1% OF THE POPULATION VS "MAGA REPUBLICANS" WHO THINK THE 2020 ELECTION WAS STOLEN (~15% OF U.S. POP.)?
  • EVEN IF THE NUMBERS ON TERRORISM ARE SOMEWHAT BIASES AGAINST THE RIGHT, IS IT STILL ACCURATE TO SAY THAT RIGHT-WING ATTACKS TEND TO KILL MORE PEOPLE WHILE LEFT-WING ATTACKS TEND TO BE MORE NUMEROUS BUT INVOLVE MORE "MID-LEVEL VIOLENCE" LIKE HARASSMENT & DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY THAT'S LESS HARSHLY PUNISHED?
  • DO PUBLIC OPINION POLLS SHOW A WORRYING INCREASE AMONG AMERICANS WILLING TO CONDONE POLITICAL VIOLENCE, PARTICULARLY AMONG YOUNGER PEOPLE? DO WE SEE MAJOR DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE LEFT & RIGHT, AND HOW DOES THIS VARY OVER TIME (E.G. AFTER ATTACKS ON THEIR SIDE VS OTHER SIDE)?
  • IS THE RECENT ONLINE CELEBRATION OF THE KILLINGS OF HEALTHCARE CEO BRIAN THOMPSON & BLACKSTONE EXEC WESLEY LEPATNER A WORRYING TREND, OR PROBABLY INDICATIVE OF A SMALL MINORITY?
  • Nicole Narea, "Is political violence on the rise in America? Two charts that show how the attack on Minnesota lawmakers is part of a dangerous trend."
    https://www.vox.com/politics/417351/minnesota-assassination-political-violence-trump-shooting
  • The Economist, "Is 'radical-left' violence really on the rise in America The killing of Charlie Kirk is part of a grim pattern of political violence. This is what the data show..."
    https://archive.ph/EMh4x
  • Alex Nowrasteh, "Politically Motivated Violence Is Rare in the United States"
    https://www.cato.org/blog/politically-motivated-violence-rare-united-states
  • Megan McArdle, "Tallying Right-Wing Terror vs. Jihad: It's complicated enough. No need to stretch the numbers [as 2015 New America study did]."
    https://archive.ph/w7ApU
  • Laura Santhanam, "1 in 5 Americans think violence may solve U.S. divisions, poll finds"
    https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/1-in-5-americans-think-violence-may-solve-u-s-divisions-poll-finds
  • David Montgomery, "What Americans really think about political violence"
    https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/52960-charlie-kirk-americans-political-violence-poll
  • Sean J. Westwood, et al, "Current research overstates American support for political violence"
    https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2116870119
  • Jesse Arm, "The Rise of Luigism: Those celebrating the murder of Wesley LePatner reveal a dark, rising undercurrent in our culture."
    https://www.city-journal.org/article/manhattan-shooting-wesley-lepatner-blackstone-luigi-mangione

Related topics

Conflict Resolution
Sociology
Criminal Justice
Protest
Political Polarization

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