America

The murder of the figure of the extreme right media Charlie Kirk is another chapter in the growing political violence in the United States during the last decade.

Kirk, the 31 -year -old boss of the Youth Group Turning Point USA, was shot by an unknown armed man at the Utah Valley University campus on Wednesday. He was declared later in a hospital.

The reasons for all these threats or acts of variable violence are not always clear or direct. But what they share in common is that everyone is attacked in chosen or other political figures.

Political violence research indicates that it has constantly increased in the last decade. Threats against Congress members have almost doubled since 2017, according to the Capitol Police. Threats against local officials have almost doubled since 2022, with such threats in 2025 that already exceed all threats by 2022 and 2023, according to the Princeton bridge divisions initiative.

Olivier Touron through Getty Images

Most threats and political violence in recent years come from law in the United States, according to a study by the National Institute of Justice. This study found that politically motivated murders committed by right -wing actors far exceeded those committed by leftist actors or Islamist extremists in the United States, this has been encouraged by a growing activity between groups of militias, street streets of the extreme right and political figures, perhaps especially Trump. That does not mean that left -wing political violence does not happen. It is only a characteristic of the political landscape that in the 1970s, the culminating point of political violence in the United States in the last 50 years.

Trump’s entry into the political scene coincides with the constant increase in political violence in the country. His rhetoric throws his political opponents as evil, since he asks “compensation” against those who have harmed him. His main political advisor, Stephen Miller, has called the Democrats a “national and extremist organization. “Violent rhetoric was a frequent characteristic in its manifestations in 2016, which was placed, and became a tool to try to steal the 2020 elections It is January 6.

Political violence has even become a matter of laughter for Trump and its allies. After a crazy attacker fed by the theories of conspiracy online beat Paul Pelosi with a hammer, Trump made fun of him.

“Nancy Pelosi has a large wall wrapped in his house. Of course, he didn’t help too much with the problem he had, right?” Trump said in 2024.

Many republican figures stacking. Which included Kirk, who, In 2022asked “an incredible patriot in San Francisco or in the Bay area, he really wants to be a half -period hero, someone should go and bond [the attacker] outside.”

Political figures of both parties condemned Kirk’s murder on Monday.

“The attack against Charlie Kirk is disgusting, vile and rebuilt”, the governor of California Gavin Newsom Said on social networks. “In the United States of America, we must reject political violence in all forms.”

“Political violence has become too common in American society,” President Mike Johnson (R-La). saying. “This is not what we are. It violates the central principles of our country.”

“The scourge of armed violence and political violence must end”, the representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DN.Y.) Said on social networks. “Charlie Kirk’s shooting is the last incident of this chaos and must stop. We can’t go this path.”

“We still do not know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this type of despicable violence does not take place in our democracy,” former President Barack Obama Said on social networks.

Political violence is not just a rhetorical tool. It is turned in all directions, wrapping society as a whole, as seen in the late 1960s and 1970s, wave of political violence. Playing with him just the heat rises in the cauldron. Now, it seems to be boiling.