Below is my column in USA Today on the rising support for political violence, particularly among young voters. Citizens are being desensitized to violence, even murder, when committed for a good cause.
Here is the column:
Across the country, a chilling shift is occurring. Political violence has become a twisted form of virtue signaling. Mahatma Gandhi is out and Luigi Mangione is in. For an increasing number of young people, nothing signals your values like a willingness to kill others for them.
For decades, being nonviolent has been the touchstone for many on the left. Something is changing. On my campus and others around the country, students are rationalizing violence and even idolizing assassins.
A recent Emerson College poll shows that 4 out of 10 voters between the ages of 18-29 (39%) view Mangione’s role in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson as “acceptable” or “somewhat acceptable.” Other polls show a troubling number of liberal voters consider political violence justified, including polls showing 40% of young people embracing political violence in some circumstances.
For college students, the rationalization of the killing of a Charlie Kirk or a Brian Thompson is now a litmus test of your movement bona fides. I have heard exchanges where students identify with accused assassin Tyler Robinson, who wrote, “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk, and I took it.”
This week, UC Irvine instructor Matt Goldman came under fire for a posting showing the picture of conservative Nick Shirley with the menacing observation “Someone can do the funniest thing just before the Kirkiversary.” There was a time when political assassination was viewed as anathema, particularly among academics.
To put it simply, violence is in vogue.
Hollywood isn’t helping our political violence problem
Hollywood is commoditizing political violence. Many conservatives were critical of the movie “One Battle After Another,” with Leonardo DiCaprio, as glorifying domestic terrorism and fueling liberal paranoia.
Other actors seem eager to make their films part of a political rage fest. “Spider-Man” actor Andrew Garfield actually said that he hoped that his new movie, “The Uprising,” would make billionaires scared, declaring that “I hope that if any billionaires watch it, they’re scared s—less.”
Garfield wanted to take this film as his own bona fides with the mob, demonizing the rich. He apparently forgot Spider-Man’s motto, “With great power comes great responsibility.”
Others are more direct. Lexi Alexander, director of the 2008 Marvel film “Punisher: War Zone,” triggered a firestorm Sept. 1 with an X post featuring Mangione’s face superimposed on Batman’s bat signal. The posting featured a new article’s headline: “Bank of America vice president killed in Times Square stabbing.” The vice president, Erin Piacenti, 32, left a 5-month-old daughter who will now grow up without a mother.
When people noted the obvious that Alexander, who bills herself as a “Palestinian filmmaker,” was seemingly celebrating the death of bank officer Piacenti, who was just back from maternity leave, Alexander accused them of being Israeli propagandists, or “Hasbara bots.”
In a now-deleted post, Alexander dismissed criticism that she knew about the executive being a new mother and said it was enough at the time that she was an executive because “it sounded like another Luigi situation.”
For years, politicians, pundits and professors have fueled political rage by claiming that those with opposing views are seeking to end democracy, bring back the Confederacy or turn citizens into slaves of the oligarchs. Such apocalyptic claims give a sense of license to people to free themselves from all social and moral constraints, allowing them to hate completely and unreservedly.
The saddest aspect of this trend is what it says about our hold on not just our civility but our humanity. The irony is that the arc of the moral universe, famously described by Martin Luther King Jr., is being bent back in the name of perverted notions of equity and justice. By demonizing others like corporate executives, many on the left are now free to enjoy gratuitous violence, even the killing of a new mother in Times Square.
In “Rage and the Republic,” I write about the fear of the founders that democracies historically devolved into what Benjamin Rush called “mobocracies.” John Adams put that history in its starkest terms: “there never was a democracy yet, that did not commit suicide.”
The founders watched as the French Revolution, occurring shortly after our own, unleashed a blood-soaked “Terror” as a population engaged in a spasm of violence against aristocrats, clergy and then themselves.
Maximilien Robespierre would legitimize the slaughter by telling citizens that violence was noble and mercy was weakness. He explained that “Terror is only justice: prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue.”
Past movements from the French Revolution to the Cultural Revolution to recent genocidal campaigns in Europe and Africa show that a dark element rests deep within us that can be released when we are sufficiently angry or afraid.
In my book, I call it the “Saturn Gene.” During the French Revolution, journalist Jacques Mallet du Pan observed that “like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children.” It is an inexorable pattern where movements release long-suppressed rage only to destroy those who led the mob to collective acts of murder and mayhem.
With influential figures and even political leaders fueling the rage, we can no longer ignore the growing appeal and acceptance of political violence. This country has never allowed the Saturn gene to become dominant in our body politic. However, as the citizens are increasingly conditioned to accept political violence, we are dangerously resembling not our Revolution 250 years ago, but that of France.
If we are to proceed down that road, citizens would be wise to consider the words of Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, one of the most important voices of the French Revolution. When he was asked what he had done during the Revolution, the old abbot pondered the question and answered: “J’ai vécu” (“I survived”).
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
Andrew Garfield doesn’t know this?:
The U.S. tax system places a heavier burden on the wealthy, with the top 1 percent of taxpayers paying about 40 percent of all income taxes, which is the highest share since 1980. In contrast, over 53 million low- and middle-income taxpayers pay no income taxes due to various tax credits and deductions.
Is he just stupid or insincere or is there something in the water in hollywood?
Whoa!
Once again, based off all the lame annony comments in vain and lame attempts to deflect from the topic, the good professor was right on target yesterday.
Sorry to all the good commenters I could not be around to lend a hand in pointing out the stupid and crazy the far illiberal leftists have taken as their platform.
One thing I have long found strange about liberals is a lack of awareness of the diverse range of political views in others. It is quite common for a liberal to assume they are “preaching to the choir” to me, or to a small group I’m with. I usually keep my mouth shut, but I’m thinking “hah, if you only knew”. My theory is that liberals by nature dehumanize people they disagree with. I think this goes a long way toward explaining why they don’t have a problem with violence.
I strongly associate liberals with a lack of critical thinking skills. They base their principles on feelings and emotional arguments, which often causes them much difficulty in a debate. When you can’t compete in the arena of ideas, apparently violence is the go-to next step for many of them.
Scarey stuff! Yep. Turley’s basically saying we’re drifting toward mob‑style chaos. When people start treating violence as “acceptable,” the endgame becomes what that French revolutionary said — ‘I survived.’ And yeah, a lot of this morbid/ghoulish thinking is coming straight out of universities and Hollywood
OT
It is well settled that federal courts cannot issue advisory opinions.
Yet, it appears that some district courts [mostly Biden and Obama] are using TROs and injunctions and novel interpretations of standing to maneuver themselves into prohibited advisory positions.
This may need to be looked at more carefully by actual legal scholars and appropriate changes to jurisdiction made by Congress.
Frankly, I would like the DC courts [excepting the Supreme Court] to have their jurisdiction significantly reduced or eliminated altogether.
.
Young, that’s a little vague. Without any specific examples, we have no idea if this is even an issue.
Good point. It is a little vague.
One example might be the district court finding standing for an individual complaining about the esthetics of the new ballroom and halting the project. Is that not a type of advisory opinion about standing and esthetics?
Another example might be the Court of Appeals ruling that the administration’s choice of experts for the ACIP vaccine panel wasn’t constituted with members of the correct opinions and must be reconstituted with different experts.
These courts seem to be trespassing on executive jurisdiction and asserting a sort of advisory opinion at the same time.
I think the prohibition against advisory opinions was to limit judicial meddling in executive authority. There has been a lot of judicial meddling lately.
It is an issue that the courts may compel us to study and clarify.
Basically, the district court said your building is ugly and unless you build it in a way I approve I won’t let you build it at all.
An esthetic opinion with the advice that he will be clobbered if he doesn’t agree.
I don’t think the ‘case or controversy’ clause was meant to extend that far.
Young, Presidents live at the White House for fixed terms. But the White House isn’t there’s to completely re-design without any input from established commissions. Nor does the Secretary of Health have the authority to completely re-design vaccine schedules.
Trump, with Kennedy’s support, wants to go back 50 years and make children take vaccine doses just one at a time. We no longer make vaccines like that. The pharmaceutical companies would have to reactivate old formulas for reasons that make no sense scientifically. Public health shouldn’t be a matter of ideology or presidential power.
Other presidents have made changes to the WH without the help of courts or commissions. Did you object to Obama’s basketball court? Other presidents have made substantial changes. Teddy Roosevelt was responsible for the West Wing, I believe.
If the Democrats had any actual legal reason to stop the ballroom, they would have used it. Instead they went with the stupid idea that it could be stopped because somebody walking by didn’t like the looks.
I suspect that there has been a degree of regulatory capture by pharma. Most of the government decisions somehow favor more money for the industry.
As for Kennedy’s vaccine proposals, he favors a schedule more in line with that which exists in Europe. Is there any sense to vaccinating a baby for Hep B except to sell more product?
Turley Writes:
“..polls showing 40% of young people embracing political violence..
* * *
Turley highlights “40% of young people”. That links to an article from the Harvard Crimson in which these
two paragraphs appear:
* * *
Young Americans said they were especially concerned about how the emergence of artificial intelligence would impact their labor market prospects. More than half of the respondents, 59 percent, said they were concerned that AI would threaten their job prospects — a significantly higher proportion than the 31 percent that pointed to immigration and 48 percent who named the offshoring of jobs as their main labor market concerns.
The Youth Poll has consistently found that young people disapprove of Trump. That remained true in this edition, with just 29 percent of respondents approving of the president, down two points from the most recent poll issued last spring. Young Americans were also largely disapproving of Trump’s handling of the economy: just 26 percent said he had managed the economy well.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/12/4/hpop-poll-political-violence/
……………………………….
The Crimson article also contains this passage:
“A 56 percent majority said political violence was unacceptable under any circumstances.”
56% is a fairly strong majority. That wouldn’t seem to suggest that youths are necessary prone to mob violence.
Trump’s IQ Higher Than AI
President Donald Trump responded Monday to warnings of potential dangers related to artificial intelligence by dismissing the need for any safeguards and calling AI concerns a “hoax.”
Trump rejected the idea of placing guardrails on AI, saying on Truth Social that the only control needed is “a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/trump-rejects-ai-guardrails-rcna597700
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The Crimson article above tells us that 59% of young Americans fear AI will have a negative impact on their future.
But Donald Trump is confident that his self-proclaimed “High IQ” will contain AI’s destructive potential.
This pathetic assurance helps explain why 40% of young Americans think violence could be justified. With an idiot buffoon in the White House, violence could be seen as an option to consider.
Even one fist shaken at a billionaire is one person too many for Turley. And, really, that’s not the point of articles like these. It’s to feed the rage machine and incite unrestricted violence against liberals.
That’s a ridiculous straw man argument.
Thanks. As part of MAGA media, Turley has to help feed into the MAGA media slogan of “crazy vs. common sense”. Expect more exaggerations by citing obscure sources and using the information to portray Democrats as radicals, inciting violence and supporting socialism all while ignoring outrages committed by Trump.
As predicted, Trump shut down the JFK Center for the Performing Arts, which admittedly needs work and for which Congress appropriated $250 million. But Trump’s appointed Board of sycophants followed his command to shut it down because a court ruled that he can’t put his name on the building and the campus because Congress established the JFK Center for Performing Arts, only Congress can change the name. If Trump’s name is put on the building, performers and audiences will boycott it. Trump’s childish behavior will ultimately doom the venue.
Gigi’s childish behavior!!!
So then it’s 44% that find it acceptable, even worse than OAt stated.
We see how welcoming of the Gandhi types Bo French and, apparently the vast majority of the GOP, are in Texas. Funny how Turley ignores the calls to shoot Muslims issued with impunity at the GOP national convention in Texas. Also funny how Turley never discusses the rampant Islamphobia, which seems to be a core part of the GOP’s strategy this election cycle, the flames of which are being relentlessly flamed by Turley’s employer Fox News.
You just make up your own facts. You don’t provide any links. GFY
Why has the Left-Wing Mind degenerated into a worship of violence?
Let’s start with a recognition of Left’s belief that unfettered control of the heights of power — the federal government in our country –by the most perceptive and far-seeing people in the country (in which group they place themselves), can lead to “solutions” to the most pressing of human problems, indeed even to the invention of a new type of person. But they have history and economics against them.
Socialism has failed everywhere it has been tried, thus destroying the appeal of their argument. And the federal government is now facing a debt of over $41 trillion dollars, thus making large spending programs impossible. Frustrated by these limits, they turn from “programs” to “persons”. Instead of talking about ideas, they have descended to attacking personalities. To make the concentration on persons interesting, they must fan the flames of hatred. Instead of world of “old customs” vs. “new ideas”, they divide the world into good and bad people. Improvement comes from destroying the bad people.
Why you ask? To prepare the way for alla alla in free of course.
Estovir is Edward Mahl forgetting that Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ has already added $2 trillion to the debt in less than two years.
“Why has the Left-Wing Mind degenerated into a worship of violence?”
Well, the conservatives are accepting of the mass slaughter going on in Gaza following what was essentially a prison riot from the world’s largest open air prison camp. Conservatives are also accepting of murdering people who are in little boats just trying to make a living like capitalists claim should be allowed. If what they do is illegal then arrest them, charge them, and try them.
Conservatives justified the shooting in the back of a man on the ground who had just been disarmed because ICE is allowed to kill anyone at any time for any reason. A local couple, having raised children in America, were here under a refugee backed visa owing to the threat to their lives in the country of origin. They were rounded up, sent back and, in less than a week, were both found murdered with their baby next to them in an open field.
Conservatives want that.
Conservatives particularly revel in economic violence. They have refused to allow contributions to pay off school lunch debt in order that impoverished students suffer the humiliation of the alternative lunch. Instead of a hamburger and vegetables it’s a cheese slice on bare bread. The lesson it teaches is cruelty.
Conservatives want that too.
When asks, requests, and then demands, are ignored by conervatives using economic and political violence and applauding physical violence, it should not be any surprise that the left picks up what the right has shown is the only tool that will gain the attention of the right.
^ Chinese Communist Party propaganda slop ^
“Well, the conservatives are accepting of the mass slaughter going on in Gaza following what was essentially a prison riot from the world’s largest open air prison camp>”
You are so ignorant; you don’t even know what a prison is. A prison keeps people in. No one is holding Gazans captive. No one wants them starting wars. Jordan threw them out. Egypt refused to take Gaza. The Egyptians won’t let them pass into the Sinai, and during the war, the Egyptians placed tanks facing the armed Egyptian exits from Gaza.
If the Gazans want to leave Gaza, they have a beautiful stretch of land on the Mediterranean and can go anywhere in Europe and North Africa. Israel is not stopping them.
Why would they leave? It’s their land. They were there before the zionists. That’s the whole point.
I guess that means you retract your point that Gaza is not ” the world’s largest open air prison camp”. It seems you can’t make up your mind on anything. As far as I am concerned, and that is the basic concern of Israel, which removed its troops and settlers in 2005, they can stay in Gaza, but they can’t expand from the river to the sea.
Meyer
You are straight out lying, and you know it.
Everything you post here is a lie, and you do it deliberately.
You contradict yourself in your own comment. You start out claiming that Gaza is not a prison, because prisons keep people in, and since the Gazans are free to leave it can’t be a prison. Then you immediately say that Egypt and Jordan doesn’t want them and won’t allow them in. Israel certainly doesn’t want them. So it is perfectly clear that these countries are KEEPING THEM IN, which by your own words is the definition of a prison.
There is no question that Gaza is a prison. As you say, Egypt refuses to let them into the Sinai. The only other legal way out is the Erez crossing into Israel. Gazans have to get an exit permit from Israel to cross, and the permits are not available to people who simply want to leave. The only people who get permits are Gazans who need to travel to the West Bank for work, or for medical care. Permits are not granted for tourism or to people who simply want to leave. And the very few people who actually get a permit to leave Gaza cannot then surreptitiously leave for another country. Israel will not let them leave unless they have a valid visa from a third country, and there is no way that Gazans can even apply for such a visa, let alone physically secure one.
You falsely claim that Gazans are perfectly free to leave. THAT IS A LIE !!!!
You also falsely claim that they are free to go to North Africa or Europe. They would need a visa to do that legally, and as I explained it is impossible to get a visa. The only way to get to Europe and North Africa, would be by illegal means. And if they did that you would be the first in line here whining about illegal immigration.
You are a liar, plain and simple.
Everything you post here is a lie.
You have absolutely no credibility whatsoever.
Meyer, you are conversing with a very ignorant person. They cannot learn because they are completely indoctrinated.
BTW did you see Bill Maher’s takedown of that type of garbage. It’s linked from citizenfreepress.com, and the Gaza stuff starts at the 4:40 mark, but the whole thing is worth watching.
Blanche Blows Off Russian-Paid Wedding
Attorney General Todd Blanche dismissed concerns over a wedding gift to Donald Trump Jr. from an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this year.
“The president’s son has said that he’s a very close friend, and that he accepted a gift in the weekend of his wedding,” Blanche told reporters at the White House press briefing when asked if it was appropriate for Trump Jr. to accept the gift and if he would investigate if everything was appropriately reported as a gift.
“When you say ‘am I investigating?’ Am I investigating what? And when you say this person is a friend of Putin, I don’t even know if that’s true or not,” he continued. “I like that it’s fun to talk about this issue and the rhetoric around it, but I think all of the relevant people involved, the president and his kids have already addressed it.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6091180-blanche-dismisses-trump-jr-gift/
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Exactly how did Don Jr become friends with this Russian oligarch? And though Blanche casts doubts on Kremlev’s links to Putin, Kremlev has been widely photographed with the Russian dictator and accompanied Putin on a trip to China. It sounds like Blanche just doesn’t want to know anything about this.
^ Chinese propaganda slop ^
^ Russian disinformation slop ^
^ North Korean propaganda slop ^
^ Gabonese propaganda slop ^
^ Brazilian propaganda slop ^
^ Papua New Guinean propaganda slop ^
^ Mexican propaganda slop ^
^ Icelandic propaganda slop ^
^ Greek propaganda slop ^
^ Algerian propaganda slop ^
ANON MORONS
Was a crime committed? Dial 911.
I just want my $5000! When am I going to get my $5000?!?!?!? Actually wait – Trump promised us all $2000 already because DOGE was so successful. Where’s my money?
^ Idiot ^
General Welfare – ALL, or the WHOLE, WELL PROCEED.
Congress may tax for and fund a check to ALL citizens under the “General Welfare” provision in Article 1, Section 8.
A $5K check would certainly facilitate the stated purpose of ALL WELL PROCEED, or “general Welfare.”
Congress may, but Congress hasn’t.
Trump yet again has made a promise that is not his to make and cannot deliver on.
Turley: “For decades, being nonviolent has been the touchstone for many on the left.”
1968 Chicago convention riots.
George Floyd riots.
Angela Davis. Bernardin Dorn. Bill Ayers. Charlie Manson. The first three became “prestigious” professors.
I am only surprised that Manson wasn’t awarded an honorary PhD by UCLA or Berkeley.
French Revolution. Russian Revolution. 1848 Revolution.
Political violence on the left isn’t new. It’s in its very marrow.
You can add Pol Pot and Fidel Castro to that list.
Yes, and many more: Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Hitler.
Less well known, the Communists in Barcelona fighting Franco. Read Orwell’s ‘Homage to Catalonia’ for more. He volunteered to fight in the trenches against Franco–and did–but had to flee because his friends and fellow soldiers were being liquidated by the Communists for not being sufficiently in line with Communist ideology.
Hey, Andrew Garfield, Robin Hood robbed the tax collector, i.e. the government, because the taxes were making the people destitute, kinda like your side wants to do…
Robin Hood was MAGA!
At some point these armchair revolutionaries will elicit a violent reaction from the NRA population and they will get their just desserts
There it is – the response that the supposed “anti-rage champion Jonathan Turley” has always been fomenting among his readers. “Let’s get our guns.”
That may be your interpretation, but the other anonymous didn’t endorse the events described. Perhaps you are on a hair trigger just waiting for an endorsement even where none is evident, so you can say, “Aha!”
That pink anonymous is Estovir along with Vicente and 2 other anonymouses. It’s another example of how one person completely warps these threads with endless posts.
^ Moron ^
PSYCHO MORON!!
At some point they will join the NRA population and won’t that get exciting.
It will be entertaining to see what these violence supporting young leftists do when their targets decide to return the violence.
It would be wise if the MAGAs hide their MAGA hats and burn their “F YOUR FEELINGS” t-shirts and scrape the Trump stickers from their cars and toss out their Trump flags. That is, if they want to make it past the first round of violence.
LAME
LOVE, MAN.
FLOWER POWER MAN, CAN YOU DIG IT?
PEACE.
THE MANTRA OF THE LEFTISTS
MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR MAN
AS THEY THREW Molotov cocktails AT PIGS and
Sang with one screaming COMMAND, “GOT TO LOVE MAN, LOVE”
(except pigs and the over 30 capitalist whores)
Their offspring, finding a voice in that upper middle class teeny bopper, who learned how to poor beer, want what’s theirs. What’s theirs?
Ours.
“It’s the [electorate], stupid!”
– James Carville
___________________
Why are Americans talking about Gandhi, Mangione, and Political Violence?
America exists under the “dictatorship of the majority,” the “dictatorship of the poor.”
“So, the lunatics have taken charge of the asylum.”
The American Founders understood that the leaders of society must lead.
Turnout in 1789 was 11.6%, and generally by state, voters were male, European, and 21 with 50 lbs. Sterling or 50 acres.
Genuine, authentic, actual democracy was created in Greece in 508 B.C. with a severely restricted vote.
Citizen Population: Out of a total population of roughly 250,000 to 300,000 in ancient Athens, only about 30,000 to 40,000 free men qualified as active citizens.
The adults in the room must take charge…
or chaos will.
Where are the New American Revolutionaries and Founders?
In the Green Dragon Tavern?
Your lips to God’s ears.
I agree we’ve made it too easy to vote, and too easy for the Dem Party to farm votes from the indifferent and aloof.
We might still have a civics qualifying test to vote — but voter screening scams were used in the South to disenfranchise black voters (even educated entrepreneurs). It just goes to show how corruption begets overcorrection.
A voter-eligibility test (civics knowhow, non-partisan) could never be established in the current environment, because the 2 parties would just see it as the next-gen gaming tool to tilt elections. The self-serving corruption runs deep. There is no honor among thieves.
Get some help, you really need it.
Did the Greeks who created reasonable and rational, severely restricted-vote “democracy” need it, Einstein?
The “dictatorship of the majority” – the “dictatorship of the poor” – the “dictatorship of the proletariat” – IS communism.
America exists under the “dictatorship of the majority,” the “dictatorship of the poor.”?
American exists under the dictatorship of the largest corporations.