Two assassination attempts against President Donald Trump, the murder of a health insurance executive in New York City, the burning of Tesla dealerships and vehicles nationwide, and the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk — all these events are appalling in themselves. But the fact that so many people on the Left, particularly the youngest generation of adults, celebrate such violence is more disturbing and a threat to the stability of our nation. It deserves an honest reckoning.
One can point to recent outrages in which Democrats were assaulted (Paul Pelosi), attacked (Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA)), or killed (former Democratic Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman); these incidents were uniformly condemned by conservatives and not celebrated or justified in any manner. In the case of the attack on Shapiro, it came from one of the Left’s pro-Hamas allies.
A comparable or even noticeable level of condemnation does not, however, come from the Left in response to the well-established recent pattern of violence against conservatives.
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When Luigi Mangione killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said, “Violence is never the answer, BUT people can only be pushed so far.” She should have stopped talking after “violence is never the answer.” There is no justification for murder, no matter what one thinks of our third-party payer healthcare system.
When Democrats burned Teslas to protest Elon Musk’s place in the Trump administration, late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel mocked the businessman and said he deserved it for being a “Nazi.” Kimmel knew his audience, which celebrates political violence, and rejoiced at the attacks on Musk. According to a Rutgers University poll, almost 60% of those who consider themselves “left of center” said the destruction of Tesla dealerships to protest Musk’s political opinions was at least somewhat justified. The same poll found that 56% of those “left of center” respondents also felt the murder of Trump would be at least somewhat justified.
The Rutgers poll is not alone. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression polled about free speech for years and found that one-third of students said “using violence to stop a campus speech” is acceptable. That same poll found that while 93% of baby boomers and 86% of Generation X said using violence to stop speech is never acceptable, only 58% of Gen Z agreed.
Most recently, YouGov found that 24% of liberals said it is acceptable to be happy about the death of a political opponent compared to only 3% of conservatives. And while 26% of young liberals agreed with the statement that political violence is sometimes justified, only 7% of young conservatives agreed.
The embrace of violence on the Left stems from the twin beliefs that emotional discomfort is the moral equivalent of physical harm and that the threat of harm it claims to feel from the Republican Party is the equivalent of fascism.
If, as transgender activists have said, “misgendering a trans person is an act of violence,” why shouldn’t conservatives, such as Kirk, who believe men are men and women are women, which is an obvious fact, be met with violence?
If, as Democrats from former President Joe Biden to former Vice President Kamala Harris to Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) have said, “Trump supporters like Charlie Kirk are fascists,” and the United States met fascists with lethal violence during World War II, why shouldn’t conservatives also be met with violence, as Kirk was?
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Today’s Democratic Party is a deeply unhappy and isolated movement. Democrats, particularly young Democrats, are far more likely to be sad and depressed than conservatives. Democrats are far more likely than conservatives to cut off friends and family over political differences.
If Democratic Party leaders don’t tone down their rhetoric, keep silencing those who believe in biological sex rather than an ideological gender agenda, and keep insisting that support for Trump is the same as support for fascism, we will get more violence of the sort we have seen recently in New York City, Minneapolis, and at Utah Valley University.