The murder of right -wing influencer Charlie Kirk marks a waters in a wave of American political violence, one that some experts fear will initiate an already fractured country and inspire more turmoil.
“This event is terrible, alarming, but not necessarily surprising,” said Mike Jensen, a researcher at the University of Maryland, who has traced such a violence in a terrorism matabase since 1970.
For the first six months of the year, the United States experienced about 150 politically motivated attack-novels twice as many as in the same period last year, Jensen said. “I think we’re in a very, very dangerous place right now that could easily escalate to more widespread civil unrest if we don’t get it,” Jensen said. “This could definitely serve as a kind of flame point that inspires more of it.”
Domestic terrorism experts cite a convergence of factors for increased violence in the United States: economic uncertainty, anxiety about changing racial and ethnic demographics and the increasingly inflammatory tone of political discourse. Traditional ideological gap – once centered on political discrepancies – has been transformed into a deeper, more personal animosity. This anger is reinforced by a mixture of social media, conspiracy theories and personal complaints.
Reuters Identified last year at least 300 cases of political violence throughout the United States between January 6, 2021, attacks on Capitol and the presidential election in 2024, marking the most significant and sustained increase in such violence since the 1970s.
“Extreme political violence is increasingly becoming the norm in our country, and the shooting of Charlie Kirk is a sign of a far greater and more pervasive question: acts of violence are becoming more common, even without any clear ideology or motive,” said Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the program of extremism at George Washington University.
“There’s really a concern about what blowback to something similar will look like.”
Other experts studying political violence agreed. “People are reluctant to engage in violence first, but they are much more willing to engage in violence,” said Lilliana Mason, a political science professor at Johns Hopkins University. “No one will be the one who starts it, but many people will be able to end it.”
Kirk, a close ally of US President Donald Trump and founder of the conservative student group Turling Point USA, turned to an outdoor crowd of about 3,000 at Utah Valley University when a shot ranked and sent him tumbling from his chair and participants who fled in panic.
Authorities had not yet publicly identified a suspect before Wednesday night, almost six hours after the shooting. FBI Director Kash Patel said a named “item” was detained to question and then released.
Kirk, 31, was a pioneer in the conservative movement and exploited the power of social media to lure millions of young Americans to Trump’s Maga base.
“No one understood or had the heart of youth in the United States better than Charlie,” Trump said in a social media post that announced Kirk’s death. The Republican Representative House speaks Mike Johnson told CNN that there has been a “flood” of legislators who require stronger security in the wake of Kirk’s killing.
‘Vicious spiral’
Trump himself was the subject of two assault attempts last year. In one, the shooter was killed by authorities seconds after he fired. In the other, a man was arrested with a rifle and scope near a Palm Beach Golf Club where Trump played. His trial began this week.
In addition to these, two recent high -profile attacked attacks by right -wing conspiracy theorists this year shaken legislators and government workers across the country. In June, a Christian nationalist murdered a senior democratic state legislator and her husband in Minnesota and wounded another Democrat. In August, a gunman occupied by Covid-19-mergers shot shots against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta, killing a police officer.
Since January, at least 21 people have been killed in political violence, 14 of them in an attack in New Orleans of an attack that claimed loyalty to the Daesh group early on New Year’s Day.
In July, a group of at least 11 black military-style militants attacked an immigration detention center in Texas, the Ministry of Justice said. The group put fireworks, the spray paint “traitor” and “ice wine” on vehicles and shot an equivalent police officer in the neck and wounded him while another sprayed shot at retention guards, FBI said.
Since returning to the office, Trump has scaled down efforts to address domestic extremism, redirect resources against immigration enforcement and refer to the southern border as the top security threat.
Jensen, University of Maryland researcher who traces violence for the national consortium for the study of terrorism and reactions to terrorism said the future seems bleak.
“This is an administration that, whether you agree with it or not, made deep changes to this country in the eight months it has been in office,” he said. “Some people love it, some people hate it. The people who hate it start acting out. People who love it will act against the people who hate it and it becomes a vicious spiral that can lead us to something really, really bad.”
