Is the U.S. in a new era of political violence? Experts say it’s complicated

A series of high-profile political attacks in the United States highlight the country’s extreme divisions, but they do not necessarily signal a broader increase in politically inspired brutality, experts say.

Politicians, pundits and ordinary Americans are increasingly concerned about political violence. The latest wave of concern was sparked on April 25, when a 31-year-old man stormed the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC, during the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, attended by President Donald Trump. Secret Service agents arrested the gunman before he could get to the ballroom where the event was taking place. He has since been charged with attempting to assassinate the president, which would represent the third serious attempt on Trump’s life since 2024. The man has pleaded not guilty to that case and related charges.

The alleged assassination attempt follows a series of other political attacks in 2025: an arson attack on Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro; the murder of Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband; and the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. This frenzy has created a shared feeling that political violence is on the rise.

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In a Pew Research Center poll conducted in 2025 after Kirk’s assassination, 85% of respondents said they believed political violence was increasing in the United States, largely because of partisan rhetoric, polarization, and an “unwillingness” to engage with others with different opinions. Yet it is unclear whether the recent attacks constitute a new era of political violence, according to some researchers studying political violence. And understanding the motivations behind these attacks can be difficult, making studying these trends difficult, experts say.

The attacks are “troubling” and could warrant a reconsideration of how best to protect the president, says Joseph Young, a professor at the University of Kentucky who studies political violence. “But that doesn’t suggest that we’re descending into civil conflict or anything like that.”

“It’s certainly uncomfortable to see the assassination attempts that have taken place over the past 18 months, but it’s also true that we are in a relatively quiet period in American history,” adds Sean Westwood, associate professor of government at Dartmouth College. “We are a little myopic when we look at the political violence in this country. »

The history of the United States is marked by political conflict

The history of the United States is littered with acts of political violence. For example, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, several presidents – Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, and William McKinley – were assassinated. The 1960s and 1970s saw the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, Harvey Milk and others, as well as hundreds of bombings by radical political groups such as the Weather Underground.

In 1970 alone, there were more than 120 “incidents” of political violence – such as assaults, assassinations and bombings – according to the Polarization Research Lab at Dartmouth, which tracks political violence in the United States. Last year there were 10 such incidents.

“We should be concerned about the way politics is practiced in the United States, but it would be a grave mistake to say, based on a limited number of incidents, that we are now in a new era of violence,” Westwood says. “We just can’t say for sure.”

And while there have been ebbs and flows of political violence throughout American history, he adds, it’s hard to say with certainty what caused them.

Challenges of studying political violence

Part of the difficulty in tracking political violence is that it is not always clear what motivated its perpetrators. For example, some of the people involved in political attacks in recent years were not registered voters and had little motivation for their behavior, Westwood says. In the case of the Correspondents’ Association dinner, the attacker allegedly left a note outlining a plan to target Trump administration officials, “but that’s the exception, not the rule,” Westwood says.

There are known “risk factors” that influence the behavior of violent actors, but “there is no single profile or pathway for people leading to political violence,” says Thomas Zeitzoff, a professor at American University’s School of Public Affairs and author of the book: Nasty politics: the logic of insults, threats and incitement. “There are a lot of people who have perhaps radical beliefs, but very few people actually put them into practice. »

After a violent incident, researchers can attempt to trace an attacker’s path to radicalization. “But from a methodological point of view, it’s not ideal,” says Zeitzoff, because it limits the research to people who have already committed a crime – a form of selection bias. “It’s like, ‘Well, they all drank the water. So they must have been involved in a water conspiracy, right?'” Without a control group, a study is unlikely to reveal what factors in a person’s life caused them to take action.

Political violence is also relatively rare, which means small sample sizes, Zeitzoff says. People involved in extremist groups or ideology may also be reluctant to speak to researchers or lie about their motives.

Why the recent spate of political attacks may seem different

A key difference between today’s attacks and past periods of violence is visibility, largely thanks to social media. In the aftermath of Kirk’s murder, for example, high-resolution footage of the assassination was viewed millions of times online, alarming public health experts.

Political rhetoric is also “much more passionate” today than it was in the recent past, Zeitzoff says, reaching a fervor not seen since perhaps the run-up to the Civil War. “Republicans and Democrats certainly have more antipathy toward the other party, and there’s stronger partisan identification. But the idea that this has increased support for violence – I haven’t seen compelling data that demonstrates that that’s the case,” he says.

Recent polls on Americans’ support for political violence are mixed. A 2024 survey, for example, found that 22% of Democrats said they found the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson at least “somewhat acceptable.” But in a 2022 analysis of a series of surveys involving a total of nearly 5,000 people, Westwood and his colleagues found that only a small portion of respondents, about 3 percent, supported partisan violence, with “nearly all respondents” saying perpetrators should be criminally charged for their actions.

In the days after Trump’s first assassination attempt in 2024, a study by Westwood and colleagues showed that Republicans became less supportive of political attacks against Democrats. “Despite the detrimental effects of modern political conflict, extreme partisan violence did not cause an immediate surge in support for violence,” Westwood and his co-authors wrote.

Ultimately, Westwood remains optimistic about the future of the United States. “We have gone through very tumultuous periods in our past. It would be a mistake to say that an isolated event or a series of events mark the end of the Republic,” he said. “America is surprisingly resilient. We’ve seen much worse, and I think we’ll survive it too.”