An Age of Political Violence?

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The Morning

An Age of Political Violence?

We look into whether the U.S. is in a new era of violent extremism.

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From left: At a memorial to Charlie Kirk, a flag flying at half-staff, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro walking in front of his firebombed home.

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The New York Times

By

Sam Sifton

I’m the host of The Morning.

April 29, 2026,

7:09 a.m. ET

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We’re living in what can feel like a scary, chaotic moment. There have been three attempts on Donald Trump’s life (not counting plots disrupted before they got far enough for an attack). Last year, gunmen killed Charlie Kirk, the right-wing activist, and Melissa Hortman, a Democratic state legislator in Minnesota. One man firebombed the Pennsylvania governor’s house. Another broke into Nancy Pelosi’s home and attacked her husband with a hammer.

Has the United States entered a new phase of violent extremism? Sabrina Tavernise, who covers our political life, wanted to find out. She spoke with Sean Westwood, a scholar who tracks acts of political violence and how Americans react to them. Here’s part of their conversation.

Sabrina: Is political violence worse now?

Sean Westwood:

If we are looking at the period from 1865 to 1901, three of the nine presidents were assassinated. A comparable rate today would mean that we would have lost two or three sitting presidents since the late 1980s. It’s also the case that in the ’60s and ’70s, there were the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, and days with multiple bombings by radical domestic groups. That’s just not what we’ve seen in the last two decades.

What does that tell us about the country now?

We should be certainly very worried about political violence and its destabilizing effect, but the country has seen far worse and survived. Part of our doom loop is not necessarily the political violence itself, but the narrative of democratic collapse that comes along with it. And history tells us that isolated incidents of political violence — even the assassination of elected officials or presidents — do not lead to the end of the Republic.

How is political violence today different from the 1960s? Are the perpetrators themselves different? For example, Cole Tomas Allen, the man who

was charged in the latest assassination attempt — put him in historical context.

In the 1960s and ’70s, attacks largely came from organized groups like the Weather Underground and the Black Panthers. There was structure, there was coherence, there was leadership. Today, there just aren’t networks premised on spreading violence across the country.

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