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The Problem of Left-Wing Political Violence

Left-wing political violence in the US is accelerating at a pace never seen since the 1970s, at least. And the problem is not just the violence itself, but that it is increasingly normalized by rhetoric and abetted by institutions. Three strands of evidence point the same way: attitudes, incidents, and elite cues.

Attitudes. A new nationally fielded survey of 3 000 adults (Aug–Sep 2025) finds that support for political violence clusters among the very liberal, the highly educated, and the young. Nearly one in three younger adults endorse some form of political violence; 49% of Gen‑Z liberals agree that “violence is often necessary to create social change,” and among those with graduate or professional degrees, 40% agree with that statement and 36% say “if you are protesting something unjust, it is reasonable to damage property.” The same report highlights that 53% of Black Gen‑Z respondents agreed that violence is often necessary. These data, depicted in the report’s Figures 1 and 6, should concentrate the minds of anyone responsible for public safety and democratic resilience. 

Incidents. Words are not the same as deeds, but recent cases show the pipeline from ideology to action is uncomfortably short. On 3 October 2025, Nicholas Roske, a man who decided to identify as transgender in prison, received 97 months in federal prison for an attempted assassination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, with motives related to abortion and gun policy. Prosecutors urged 30 years; the court imposed just over eight. At the time, Jeff Blehar, a moderate, called it "a recipe for judicial assassinations" in NR. And right he was. Two days later, DC metro police arrested Louis Geri outside the Red Mass—an annual event traditionally attended by Supreme Court justices, recovering more than 200 explosive devices and a written screed expressing animus toward SCOTUS, Catholics, and ICE. According to the affidavit, components were functional and included nitromethane mixtures; the episode looks very much like an attempted mass‑casualty attack on a Supreme Court–adjacent target. 

Other 2025 cases show left‑coded or explicitly left‑wing motivations, including perpetrators who identify as transgender or non‑binary. Casey Robert Goonan (they/them) received 235 months for firebombing a UC Berkeley Police car and attempting to firebomb the Oakland federal building, actions the court and DOJ labeled domestic terrorism; Goonan stated a pro‑Palestinian motive tied to Oct 7, 2023.  On 4 July, 11 suspects allegedly mounted a coordinated attack on the Prairieland ICE facility in Texas that wounded a responding officer; subsequent reporting linked elements of the cell to trans and antifascist activism. 

Elite cues and social permission. Isolated incidents, no matter how tragic, are just that. The problem is when a climate of apologia and support, whether explicit or tacit, guarantees that the incidents multiply. After Charlie Kirk’s assassination, social‑media platforms documented and even warned against celebratory posts and “do‑the‑next‑one” memes. That such messages proliferated at all is an indicator of how far the Overton window has shifted.  While many public figures condemned the killing, some commentary treated the moment primarily as a referendum on Kirk’s character. Ta‑Nehisi Coates, for example, labeled Kirk a “hatemonger” during the aftermath, an obvious way of normalizing the murder.

The latest and most horrifying example of this trend is, of course, culminates, politically if not criminologically, in Virginia’s attorney‑general race. Democrat Jay Jones was revealed to have sent grisly texts about fantasizing about shooting the then‑Republican House speaker Todd Gilbert and, in the same exchange, to have wished death on Gilbert’s children. The recipient asked him to stop; the thread continued into lurid hypotheticals before a belated “lol ok.” These are not stray jokes in bad taste; they are explicit violent wishes directed at named political adversaries and their families.  Even more troubling than the texts themselves is the institutional response: most Democratic officials have continued to back Jones. Apparently, the Democratic Party as a whole is now ok with political violence.

Why this matters for policy. Taken together, the attitudinal willingness, the event tempo, and elite normalization suggest we have crossed a threshold. It is no longer adequate to treat left‑wing political violence as rare aberration while obsessing solely over right‑wing threats; the empirical picture may or may not be mixed across time, but current support and incident patterns on the left are plainly non‑trivial and, in several 2025 cases, acute.

It's time to stop pussyfooting around.

Policy News You Need To Know

#AI — A new Stanford study (PDF) by Batu El and James Zou raises concerns about AI alignment in competitive markets. Using simulated environments, the researchers found that optimizing LLMs for competitive success in sales, elections, and social media produced what they call "Moloch's Bargain": performance gains coupled with increased misalignment, including deceptive marketing claims and disinformation. The correlations are noteworthy: for example, a 7.5% engagement boost corresponded with 188.6% more disinformation in their social media simulation. It's eerily similar to the infamous AI 2027 scenario, which posits that the more AIs are primed to satisfy their human users, the more they will be inclined to lie. Should we panic? No. Ultimately this is yet another study that says that if you put AI in a particular environment and prime it to do bad things, it will do bad things. Is it interesting? Yes.

#Immigration #Data — Dear subscribers, you'll want to take note of this development: Violet Buxwalter, an IFP fellow, just unveiled the OPT Observatory, a slick interactive dashboard built on FOIA-released SEVIS data spanning 2010-2022, which maps out how international students leverage the little known Optional Practical Training program to stay in the US post-graduation. The program hit 56% overall participation and a whopping 68% in STEM fields, with active participants peaking at 349,000 in 2018 before dipping to 302,000 by 2022. This tool drills down into granular details across 3,300 institutions, letting you filter by degrees, fields, and locations to see things like states retaining just 40% of their grads in-state while magnets like California pull in 13-29% from elsewhere, and how about one-third of these people transition to longer-term visas.

#Immigration — Speaking of, the NYT reports that 20% fewer international students travelled to the US in August.

#BuildTheWall #MakeMexicoPayForIt — Speaking of, the Trump administration's aggressive enforcement posture on illegal immigration is delivering results that frankly deserve recognition, even from those of us who try to maintain our analytical detachment. Unlawful crossings along the US-Mexico border in fiscal year 2025 have plummeted to the lowest annual level since the early 1970s, a remarkable achievement by any measure. The combination of enhanced physical barriers, expedited removal proceedings, regional diplomatic pressure on transit countries, and credible deterrence messaging appears to have fundamentally altered the calculus for would-be illegal entrants. The data speaks clearly: when an administration commits to border security as a core policy objective and backs that commitment with resources and political capital, it can move the needle dramatically. The meaning of that demonstration will reverberate across the world and the decades, far beyond the current immigration crisis.

#Census — The controversy over the 2020 Census continues. Thankfully, last August the good folks Center for Renewing America released a comprehensive policy brief making the case that the 2020 Census requires significant correction due to what they characterize as systematic errors benefiting Democratic representation. The brief, authored by Wade Miller and Andrew White, details how the Census Bureau admitted to miscounting populations in fourteen states, with the net effect allegedly costing Republicans at least six congressional seats, including two seats Florida should have gained and one each for Texas. The authors argue that beyond these counting errors, the Bureau's adoption of "differential privacy"—an algorithm that intentionally alters accurate data under the guise of protecting identities—has rendered the census the least transparent in American history and conveniently obscures citizenship status at the block level. With House Oversight Chairman James Comer and others in Congress now pressing the Bureau on these discrepancies, and the Trump administration reportedly considering executive action, the brief lays out a detailed roadmap for correcting the 2020 data and permanently eliminating differential privacy before the 2030 Census. The document emphasizes that even adding a citizenship question to future censuses won't solve the underlying problem if differential privacy remains in place to mask that very data.

#Tax — The National Taxpayers Union is sounding the alarm on the IRS's decision to appeal the AbbVie v. Commissioner case, which centers on whether merger break fees qualify as tax-deductible expenses. After the Obama Treasury Department abruptly changed merger rules in 2015, AbbVie paid a $572 million break fee and deducted it, but the IRS challenged this treatment, arguing it should be classified as a capital loss with less favorable tax consequences. The Tax Court sided with AbbVie in June, affirming the deductibility of such fees, but the IRS is now appealing that ruling. In an op-ed at the Examiner, NTU's Thomas Aiello argues this creates damaging uncertainty for businesses engaged in M&A activity and potentially undermines President Trump's pro-growth agenda, even as the FTC and DOJ have adopted more business-friendly approaches to mergers. The piece makes a compelling case that the IRS should drop its appeal and uphold what the author describes as long-standing precedent, allowing companies to deduct legitimate business expenses when deals fall through due to regulatory changes beyond their control. This is worth monitoring as it could have significant implications for deal-making certainty across sectors.

#ACA — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene publicly broke with party leadership Monday evening by calling for action on expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits, citing concerns that premiums could double for her adult children and constituents in 2026 if the subsidies lapse at year's end. Greene emphasized she remains opposed to the ACA itself but argued that allowing these specific tax credits to expire would impose significant financial burdens on American families, stating she would "rather spend money on Americans" than on foreign priorities. Her position adds a notable MAGA voice to what has been primarily a Democratic priority during the ongoing government shutdown, though she joins more than a dozen swing-district House Republicans who have also called for extending the funding. The GOP conference remains divided on the issue, with many conservatives preferring to let the subsidies expire on schedule, while Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune have indicated they won't address healthcare funding until Democrats agree to reopen the government first. Greene criticized party leadership for not presenting a plan to address the anticipated premium increases.

#TheEconomyStupid #Trade #Manufacturing — The ISM manufacturing index registered 49.1 in September, marking the seventh consecutive month of contraction as manufacturers continue to grapple with tariff-related pressures and broader economic uncertainty, reported the Straits Times. Survey respondents across multiple sectors, particularly transportation equipment and electrical machinery, reported that steel tariffs and associated border delays are significantly impacting operations, with some companies implementing price surcharges of up to 20 percent and placing capital investment projects on hold pending greater policy certainty. Maybe it's necessary pain to revitalize the US manufacturing base. Or maybe it will only get worse…