A recent attack at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner represents at least the third assassination attempt against President Donald Trump. The incident endangered administration officials, journalists, and security personnel, resulting in injuries to a Secret Service agent. This event underscores a growing wave of shootings, firebombings, and other politically motivated violence sweeping the United States.
Deepening Political Distrust Fuels Hostility
Americans agree on few issues today, except a profound distrust of opposing political groups. YouGov analyst Eli McKown-Dawson highlighted poll results showing that “Democrats and Republicans are increasingly likely to dislike each other and to feel hostile toward members of the other political party.”
Suspect Cole Tomas Allen, aged 31 and holding left-of-center views, cited in his manifesto “rage thinking about everything this administration has done.” Such intense animosity thrives in a political environment dominated by loathing, exacerbated by extensive government involvement in daily life.
Government Overreach Invites Conflict
U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch and co-author Jane Nitze warned in a 2024 essay, “If in this country law has always been king, its empire has never been so expansive.” They added, “More than ever, we turn to the law to address any problem we perceive. More than ever, we are inclined to use national authorities to dictate a single answer for the whole country. More than ever, we are willing to criminalize conduct with which we disagree.”
“When we turn to law to solve every problem and answer humanity’s age-old debates about how we should live, raise our children, and pray, we invite a Leviathan into our lives,” they continued. This expansive state becomes perilous when wielded by officials who despise opponents, leading to surveillance, audits, harassment, and worse against critics.
Partisan Rhetoric Intensifies Divisions
Leaders from both sides stoke tensions. President Trump shared an AI-generated video depicting him targeting anti-administration protesters and stated they “are not representative of this country.” New York Governor Kathy Hochul told Republicans to “just jump on a bus and head down to Florida where you belong… Because you don’t represent our values. You are not New Yorkers.” Former President Joe Biden claimed “MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution.”
Gerrymandering Locks in Power Imbalances
Efforts to manipulate electoral maps further erode trust. Democrats in Virginia and Republicans in Texas redrew districts to minimize minority-party representation. Brennan Center for Justice expert Michael Li explains, “When maps are gerrymandered, politicians and the powerful choose voters instead of voters choosing politicians.” This produces “skewed, unrepresentative maps where electoral outcomes are virtually guaranteed, even when voters’ preferences at the polls shift dramatically.”
Violence Incidents Reach Record Highs
Politically motivated attacks climb steadily. Data from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) indicates domestic attacks and plots against the U.S. government hit their highest levels since at least 1994. Analysts dubbed 2025 “the year of the Molotov cocktail,” with the device appearing in at least seven incidents.
CSIS experts Daniel Byman and Riley McCabe noted that 2025 marked “the first time in more than 30 years that left-wing attacks outnumber those from the far right.”
Youth and Extremes Show Highest Support for Violence
The Skeptic Research Center’s American Political Perspectives Survey found about one in three younger adults (Gen Z and Millennials) support political violence. Support peaks among those identifying as “very liberal” (44 percent agree “violence is often necessary to create social change”), followed by “very conservative” (27 percent). Older Boomers, especially moderates and conservatives, show the least support at 7 percent.
Violence shifts with power dynamics—no faction dominates consistently. Yet normalizing it risks catastrophe when government serves as a weapon against dissenters.
A less intrusive government offers the best path to reduce factional damage and ensuing conflicts.
