Experts warn of a dangerous shift in American societal norms

The normalization of political violence is taking root in public life in the United States. Once shocking near-assassinations are now becoming grimly accepted chapters in political campaigns. Experts warn this signals a dangerous shift in societal norms — and the consequences are already unfolding, The Hill reported Sunday.

The report notes that in the year following the first assassination attempt on President Donald Trump, public threats toward officials have not only persisted — they have escalated.

From the tragic killing of a Minnesota state legislator to last week’s firefight at a U.S. Border Patrol station in Texas, high-profile incidents are mounting.

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Jon Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, told The Hill: “We continue to see a normalizing of political violence, a very casual acceptance that some elected officials may be legitimate targets for violence—based on conspiracies, based on disinformation—and unfortunately and tragically, we’ve seen that that has real-world consequences."

He added: “When there is so much rhetoric…it’s only a matter of time before someone with a grievance and a gun finds that justification.”

This reflects a broader trend — federal arrests for threats against officials hit a 12-year high in 2024, according to Seamus Hughes of the University of Nebraska Omaha’s NCITE program, whose comments were also highlighted in the report.

Hughes pointed out that many cases now invigilated at the federal level would previously have been dropped or handled locally. “It’s clear law enforcement and prosecutors want to put their finger on the scale on such threats,” he said.

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Last month, Robert Pape, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, told the Guardian: “We are in a historically high period of American political violence."

He added: “I call it our ‘era of violent populism’. It’s been about 50 years since we’ve seen something like this. And the situation is getting worse.”