The freedom to express one’s own political views, a hallmark of American civil society, is rapidly becoming under threat.
Just within the past few months, state legislators and their spouses were attacked in their homes and a prominent activist was gunned down on a college campus. Looking just slightly further back, we also saw the husband of a former House speaker assaulted in his home, allegations of a kidnapping plot against a governor and multiple attempted assassinations of President Donald Trump.
Attacks on important figures are hardly new in the United States. Four presidents were assassinated across the centuries, and many more survived thwarted attempts on their lives.
But despite this history, we are clearly becoming more used to political violence than we ever have been.
Threats against members of Congress have more than doubled since 2017, and acts of political violence are quicker to disappear from the public’s consciousness as we all become more desensitized to horrific acts against our leaders.
University of Minnesota sociology professor emeritus Joachim Savelsberg said the extreme political polarization we are facing, often called “tribalization,” is partly to blame.
“Members of the other tribe are always less valuable than your own tribe,” Savelsberg said. “The more tribalization sets in, the more there is a felt need to defend the ‘honor’ of your own tribe.”
This extreme division illustrates the major problem with turning to acts of violence for political purposes. This only motivates more political violence in retribution. Eyes are traded for eyes until Americans can no longer see each other’s humanity under their political beliefs.
We are seeing this clearly right now as the aftereffects of Charlie Kirk’s murder ripple across the nation.
The backlash has been so strong that many people and institutions have been caught in the crossfire. Historically Black colleges and universities received numerous threats of violence.
Savelsberg said the response by prominent political figures is crucial for addressing acts of political violence.
We have seen leaders in the past effectively stress the need for unity and peace after the public witnesses these acts. But recently, leaders instead turned to partisan reactions and stoked their base’s outrage.
“The more polarization you have, the more responses by political actors that express empathy when a member of their own group is targeted, and are silent, or even applaud, when a member of the other group is targeted, that further contributes to polarization,” Savelsberg said.
Trump is a clear example. He recently signed a memorandum ordering the federal government to investigate what he deemed “organized political violence” by the political left. This is despite the fact that attacks by individuals identifying with the political right make up the vast majority of fatal acts of political violence in the U.S.
Regardless of who attacks whom, trying to connect the acts of individuals willing to commit murder to political groups as a whole both exploits the victims of violence and rationalizes crimes that are inherently not rational.
Violence should not be treated as a way to demonstrate your ideals, because it is not a normal way of expression by any means.
According to Savelsberg, today’s level of polarization has caused many of us to try to put perpetrators of political violence in ideological boxes. Yet, ideology is far from the only factor that could drive people to commit acts of targeted political violence. Personal instability and isolation are much greater risk factors when paired with a polarized society.
“If you look at a number of cases, they have some ideological orientation, but nothing clearly set or coherent,” Savelsberg said. “Many of them are kind of lost souls — people who are young, feel isolated, or have aborted or chaotic careers.”
While the desire for revenge may be hard to fight, we need to find other ways to process our anger and grief. Trying to justify politically motivated attacks on people of opposing ideologies is misguided, unproductive and downright dangerous to our society.
Our political sphere may be seeing more victims of violence, but we must not turn them into martyrs. This exploitation of their death is not only divisive but disrespectful to their legacies.
So, no matter what part of the political spectrum we may occupy, we all must lay down our weapons. Massacring each other over and over again will do nothing to help a hurting nation.
I’m not saying everyone should come together and sing Kumbaya, as the U.S. is still deeply polarized. It will likely remain that way for quite some time. Still, political violence does nothing but ensure the destruction of our entire civil society and the loss of our ability to express our beliefs.
Attacks against political figures are attacks against all of us, not just the people who agreed with those figures. As soon as one person is deprived of the right to freedom of speech and expression, we all run that risk.
We must come together to denounce acts of violence, wherever and whenever they occur.
Otherwise, we perpetuate the idea that a person’s life is only worth their political views.
