American politics has become increasingly hostile and violent over the last few years, leading to far too many high-profile cases of political violence.
On Wednesday, conservative commentator Charlie Kirk was assassinated while speaking to students at Utah Valley University. And there have been many more in recent years.
These cases range from the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh to the 2022 Buffalo supermarket massacre, the July 2024 Trump assassination attempt, and the September 2024 second attempted assassination of Trump. In April, there was an assassination attempt on Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, and in June, there were the assassinations of Minnesota State Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman, as well as the attempted assassination of Minnesota State Senator Jeff Hoffman and his wife.
America was built upon the concept of freedom of speech and the ability to safely express one’s opinions. But recently, and far too often, people have turned to violence.
Political violence is not a “right vs. left” issue. It’s a societal and cultural issue.
For nearly a decade now, political discussions have devolved into the type of name-calling arguments that are more often found at middle school lunch tables. People on the left are called communists, and those on the right are called Nazis. These extreme viewpoints in mainstream politics have been extremely detrimental to society.
This outlook has poisoned people’s minds and created the perfect storm, leading to political violence.
Politics has always been cutthroat, but the serious disagreements once were mostly contained to politicians. Sadly, that isn’t the case anymore.
With the rise of social media, people have fallen deeper into echo chambers, and now, as a society, Americans are the most divided we’ve been since the end of the Civil War. And history shows that countries divided within are the most susceptible to falling.
This divide can be seen in the many recent acts of political violence. All of these deaths and injuries are completely unnecessary and completely unjustified, and it isn’t just the people who are killed who are victims of these tragedies. The families of those lost are victims as well.
Corey Comperatore died shielding his family at the Trump rally shooting. Melissa and Mark Hortman left behind two adult children. And now Charlie Kirk has left behind his wife and two children, who were only 1 and 3 years old.
