Violence in the United States is exceptional in several ways: The country hosts very active protest movements, resulting in over 50 demonstrations recorded daily. Its political violence is pushed and encouraged by a robust number of militias, representing ideologies from "preppers" active in Montana, Arizona and Washington, to antisemitism (the Goyim Defense League, for example), to "border defenders," "family protectors," and white nationalists. These groups are overwhelmingly to the right on the political spectrum, partially because far-left groups find organization and agreement so very difficult.
But despite a lot of rhetoric and performative actions, very little actual violence comes from organized militias – both their number and their inactivity are unique to the American context. The murders and the violence risk comes from another, unaffiliated, group of individuals: lone wolves. These include Tyler Robinson's alleged killing of Charlie Kirk, Vance Boelter's alleged murders [of Democratic lawmakers] in Minnesota, or the multiple school shooters. These individuals are often isolated, very online, disturbed and politically unaffiliated. They can be easily armed and increasingly use public spaces and public representatives to perform their violence for us – their audience.
Their links to conspiracies, political parties, or even their local militias, is very weak – they are neither members of a political party, vote consistently, have a known political platform nor have any known links to local groups. Some share ideas with extremist groups – such as "doomsday prepping" – which often leads them to disregard the institutions of the state to handle what their "grievances" are. This type of violence is unpredictable. But it's not inevitable.
Changes to American politics
Yet, the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk will bring changes to American politics. Kirk did not believe that the random violent risks constituted a cost too high to pay by society. He said: "I think it's worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights." His murder is treated by some as the first shots of a civil war. But this is wrong. Like so many recent attacks, it wasn't carried out for a movement or an organization but facilitated by distorted extreme political ideas or personal vendettas and available weapons.
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