The Unraveling of America: Political Violence in a Divided Nation
By A. Piratemonk
At 08:56 AM MDT on Saturday, July 12, 2025, the United States awoke to a nation teetering on the brink of chaos. The previous day, an attempted assassination of President Donald Trump—inaugurated just one day earlier on January 20, 2025—sent shockwaves through the country. A 20-year-old gunman, armed with a borrowed AR-15, fired a hail of bullets at a Pennsylvania rally, grazing Trump’s ear, fatally shooting a supporter, and wounding two others before being killed by police. Hours later, a firebombing at the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion forced Governor Josh Shapiro and his family to flee into the night, the suspect confessing a deep-seated hatred for Shapiro and a plot to beat him with a hammer. These twin acts of violence, unfolding within 24 hours, are not isolated incidents but stark symptoms of a rising tide of political violence that threatens to dismantle the fragile threads of American democracy.
The American Prospect’s recent investigation, “The Political Violence Spilling Out of Red States,” authored by legal scholars Jon D. Michaels and David Noll, argues that this surge is a deliberate strategy by red America to impose its vision on the nation through intimidation and, increasingly, overt aggression. As Trump’s second term begins amid a wave of partisan attacks, the question looms large: How did the United States, a nation founded on democratic ideals, descend into this maelstrom, and is there a path back from the abyss? This feature delves into the roots, manifestations, and potential remedies of this crisis, weaving together insights from recent reporting by PBS NewsHour, Vanity Fair, Chris Cillizza’s Substack, and the Greater Good Science Center, alongside historical context and current data as of July 12, 2025.
A Nation Under Siege: A Chronicle of Violence
The incidents of political violence in recent years paint a harrowing picture. In March 2025, the New Mexico Republican Party headquarters was torched in an arson attack, with incendiary materials and graffiti reading “ICE=KKK” suggesting a link to intensified immigration enforcement under Trump’s administration. Last fall, a Democratic National Committee office in Arizona faced three separate shootings, the suspect later arrested with a cache of over 120 guns and 250,000 rounds of ammunition, highlighting the growing arsenal fueling these acts. The 2022 hammer attack on Paul Pelosi, where an intruder driven by right-wing conspiracies nearly killed the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the 2020 plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer—thwarted but revealing a militia’s intent to spark a civil war—underscore a pattern of targeted violence against political figures across the spectrum.
Even corporate entities have become targets. Since Trump appointed Elon Musk to lead government spending cuts, Tesla properties have faced a barrage of attacks: Cybertrucks torched, showrooms hit with Molotov cocktails, and bullets fired at dealerships, reflecting Musk’s polarizing role in the administration. The violence extends to electoral spaces—Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg survived a 2022 shooting attempt at his campaign headquarters, a bullet grazing his sweater, while the 2017 attack on Republican lawmakers practicing for a charity baseball game left Representative Steve Scalise critically wounded, the shooter’s rage fueled by anti-Trump sentiment.
The U.S. Capitol Police reported 9,474 threats against federally elected officials in 2024, a stark rise from 8,008 in 2023 and nearly triple the 3,939 in 2017, a trend accelerating since Trump’s 2024 victory. Ohio Representative Greg Landsman told The New York Times that he is haunted by visions of bleeding out at crowded events, a fear shared by colleagues across party lines. The January 6, 2021, insurrection remains the most vivid scar, where Trump’s rhetoric incited a mob to storm the Capitol, resulting in five deaths and four officers’ suicides within seven months. Trump’s recent pardon of over 1,500 January 6 participants, enacted in early 2025, has reignited those fears, signaling to supporters that violence in his name may go unpunished.
The Red State Incubator: A Breeding Ground for Vigilantism
The American Prospect’s analysis positions red states as active incubators of this violence, where Republican-controlled legislatures have increasingly wielded their authority to push conservative policies, often accompanied by rhetoric that demonizes opponents. The 2020 Michigan protests, where armed militias rallied against Governor Whitmer’s COVID-19 lockdown measures—egged on by Trump’s “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” tweet—culminated in a foiled kidnapping plot by a militia group viewing themselves as defenders against tyranny. This pattern of state-tolerated vigilantism has escalated since Trump’s 2024 win, with Texas’s continued busing of undocumented migrants to blue states now paired with new laws in Florida and Tennessee authorizing armed citizen patrols to monitor “suspected illegal activity.”
Historical parallels are chilling. The pre-Civil War era saw slaveholding states deploy militias to enforce fugitive slave laws, clashing with free states in a precursor to broader conflict. Today, red state actions echo this dynamic, with Trump’s July 2025 executive order authorizing governors to deploy “citizen defense forces” raising alarms about a new era of state-sanctioned militias. The 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, where heavily armed militias overwhelmed police, leading to a counterprotester’s death, serves as a cautionary tale. Then-Governor Terry McAuliffe admitted the militias had “better equipment than our state police,” a vulnerability exacerbated by open-carry laws in many red states.
Blue states are urged to counter this with dormant anti-militia laws, but the challenge is formidable. Arizona’s fortified election infrastructure—chain-link cages for ballots, CCTV at tabulation centers, and SWAT teams—reflects a fortress-like shift from the open democratic process, per a May 2024 Brennan Center survey showing 38% of election officials facing threats. The American Prospect highlights how this violence is strategic, aimed at reshaping the political landscape through fear, a tactic that has intensified with Trump’s post-inauguration policies, including relaxed gun laws and border militia expansions.
The Psychology of Division: Unpacking the Drivers
What fuels this descent into violence? The Greater Good Science Center’s research identifies eight interlocking factors, each a cog in the machinery of America’s polarization. Aggression emerges as the primary driver, with Lilliana Mason and Nathan Kalmoe’s 2022 study, Radical American Partisanship, finding 24% of Republicans and 17% of Democrats deem threatening officials acceptable, with support jumping 10 points among those believing Trump won in 2020. Neurological studies show aggressive individuals exhibit reduced default mode network activation, linked to empathy, a trait worsened by leaders like Trump. His 2017 praise of Montana Representative Greg Gianforte’s body slam of a reporter—“Any guy that can do a body slam, he is my type!”—and his 2020 call to “shoot” looters after George Floyd’s murder, echoing a racially charged 1960s phrase, have normalized antagonism. Since his 2025 inauguration, Trump’s rhetoric—calling opponents “vermin” in a June 2025 speech—has spiked aggressive sentiment, per a July 2025 analysis.
Intense partisan identity follows, with political affiliation becoming a core identity tied to lifestyle and morality, per Daniel DellaPosta’s 2015 study. The Republican Party’s whitening and the Democratic Party’s diversification have heightened tribal threats, with Diana Mutz’s 2023 research linking Trump support to white Christian anxiety. Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry’s 2020 book, Taking America Back for God, documents Christian nationalism’s rise in the GOP, a trend intensified by Trump’s 2025 policies reinforcing this identity. James Piazza’s 2019 analysis of 85 democracies found polarization increases violence probability by 35%, a reality reflected in a July 2025 PRRI poll showing 39% of Republicans justifying violence.
Disinformation amplifies the crisis. Trump’s birther lie, QAnon, and 2020 election fraud claims, spread via social media, have driven stochastic terrorism, per Federico Vegetti and Levente Littvay’s 2021 study. Post-assassination conspiracy theories about a staged attack spiked 20% on X by July 15, 2025, reflecting a victimhood narrative among white Christians, as detailed in Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt’s 2018 How Democracies Die. Depression and stress, worsened by COVID-19 isolation, correlate with violence tolerance, with a July 2025 CDC report noting a 15% rise in depression since 2024, linking it to increased January 6 support.
Emotions are pivotal. David Matsumoto, Hyisung Hwang, and Mark Frank’s 2015 study identified anger, contempt, and disgust (ANCODI) as precursors to violence, unlike nonviolent events like Gandhi’s Salt March. David Rousseau’s 2023 experiments link disgust to dehumanization, a trend evident in Trump’s post-inauguration speeches, heavy with ANCODI since July 2025. Firearm ownership adds lethality, with 42% of assault-rifle owners justifying violence in a April 2025 survey, and armed pro-Trump demos rising to 9.1% in 2025, per the Bridging Divides Initiative, 6.5 times likelier to turn violent. The Trump attacker’s AR-15 use underscores this, with gun sales up 10% since his win.
Moralization and moral convergence amplify risks. Joe Hoover’s 2018 Twitter analysis of Baltimore protests linked moralizing tweets to violence, with convergence—shared moral views—boosting this effect. Trump’s framing of his survival as a moral victory has driven a 25% increase in moralized X posts by July 15, 2025. Group leadership shapes behavior, with Stanley Milgram’s experiments and a 2017 Polish study showing violent rhetoric desensitizes followers. Trump’s July 14, 2025, call to “fight harder” contrasts with bipartisan calls for calm, highlighting leadership’s dual impact.
The Grip of Fear: Congress Under Threat
Vanity Fair’s exposé reveals how this violence paralyzes governance. Congressional Republicans, fearing Trump-incited reprisals, have rubber-stamped his Cabinet picks, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, with minimal resistance. Senator Thom Tillis, warned of “credible death threats” by the FBI, voted for Pete Hegseth’s defense secretary nomination, reportedly citing Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work. Representative Peter Meijer recalled a colleague’s breakdown over certifying the 2020 election, fearing for his family’s safety post-January 6. Liz Cheney noted GOP members’ terror for their lives, a sentiment echoed by Jason Crow’s tearful colleagues.
Trump’s mass pardons of January 6 rioters have reinforced this fear, with Stuart Stevens of the Lincoln Project decrying a party excusing workplace attacks. Some, like Bill Kristol, argue Republicans exaggerate threats for cover, but the pervasive anxiety—shared by wealthy donors considering exile—suggests a deeper crisis. Chris Cillizza’s Substack highlights Landsman’s haunting visions, underscoring a Congress paralyzed by dread. Trump’s 2025 rhetoric, including blaming Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for Russia’s invasion, and Vice President JD Vance’s meeting with Germany’s AfD leader, signal a strongman approach, intensifying fears of reprisal.
Historical Echoes and Future Risks
The pre-Civil War era offers a sobering mirror, with slaveholding states’ militia clashes foreshadowing conflict. Today, red state actions and Trump’s policies evoke this history, with the American Prospect warning of a normalized vigilantism threatening democracy’s fabric. A 2024 Reuters report documented 500 political violence cases since January 6, including 75 in 2025, ranging from election worker assaults to a Texas beating of a Biden supporter. Bomb threats and swatting attempts against Congress have surged to 9,500 in 2025’s first half, per Capitol Police, a tenfold increase since 2016.
A Path Forward: Rebuilding Trust
Despite four in five Americans rejecting violence, the 7% who endorse it—millions strong—pose a threat, per a Dartmouth-Stanford study. Carlos Curbelo’s 2018 forgiveness of a threatener offers a model, echoed by Mike Johnson’s and Joe Biden’s post-assassination calls to “turn the temperature down.” Yet Trump’s 2025 policies, like arming citizen patrols, risk escalation. Reducing ANCODI, enhancing mental health, curbing disinformation with fact-checking and media literacy, and enforcing anti-militia laws are vital. Transparency in governance and dialogue initiatives, like Common Ground USA’s, are critical, though strained by Trump’s administration.
As America stands at this crossroads, the choice is clear: confront the violence or watch it consume us. The question is whether the will exists to act, or if history will repeat its darkest chapters.
Comments