The tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University has thrust the subject of political violence into the national spotlight. As expected, pundits and politicians quickly framed the attack as a rare outburst from the left, leaning on studies showing that right-wing extremists commit more politically motivated murders. Don Lemon, who was fired from CNN in 2023 following allegations of misogynistic and inappropriate behavior toward female colleagues, cited a Cato Institute report to disparage Rep. Nancy Mace, who said the left needs to take accountability for Kirk’s assassination, pushing the narrative that the right is more violent than the left. On paper, the numbers seem convincing: right-wing extremists do account for more politically motivated murders. But the Cato report’s methodology obscures key nuances—ones Lemon, if he weren’t a propagandist, might have acknowledged.
Chief among the issues is how the Cato report defines political violence—narrowly focusing on murder while ignoring the broader purposes of violence, which include intimidation, fear, and disruption.
A scholar who studied terrorism, after reviewing the Cato report, told me, “I think it’s a misunderstanding of terrorism to say that ‘most of the harm’ comes from death. Terrorism’s primary purpose is to cause widespread fear. Yes, that is usually caused by death, but it can also happen through unrest and property damage.”
And indeed, in recent years, there have been so many instances of left-wing motivated unrest and property destruction that, even if they don’t prove the left commits more violence overall, such an adjustment to the methodology substantially narrows the gap.
In response to alleged police brutality, leftists organized violent protests across the country. The FBI and ATF, for example, “tracked 164 structure fires from arson between May 27 and May 30, 2020, during the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis–Saint Paul.” Rioters set fires using flammable materials and Molotov cocktails. Similarly, after the police shooting of Jacob Blake, leftist protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, set multiple businesses and vehicles ablaze over several nights of unrest. Yet, CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez, reporting live in front of a building engulfed in flames, described the protest as “mostly peaceful.”
Colleges and universities, too, are central arenas for this violent spirit—places where left-wing unrest is not only present, but actively supported, normalized, and left without consequence.
[RELATED: Charlie Kirk Fought for an Education That Restores American Faith and Values]
Consider Riley Gaines’s experience at San Francisco State University in 2023. Gaines had been scheduled to speak at a Turning Point USA event, but leftist, pro-trans protesters gained access to the venue, physically assaulted Gaines twice, “ambushed,” and “barricaded [her] in a room.” She required a police escort to safety. Videos shared widely on X captured the full extent of the violence. Yet, no one was ultimately charged, with police calling Gaines’s complaints “unfounded.” (Charlie Kirk’s assassin, it’s worth noting, had a transgender partner, and shootings committed by trans people appear to be rising).
Apparently, speech is violence, but violence is not violence. Don’t believe your lying eyes!
Moreover, pro-Hamas protests and encampments have intimidated Jewish students, damaged property, and disrupted classes. While Columbia University drew national attention, Sarah Lawrence College, too, saw students linked to the Divestment Coalition storm the main administrative building, Westlands, late at night. Masked and barricading doors and windows, the group trapped dorm residents and shut down key offices, while an encampment formed outside. The college administration largely stayed silent, with the Dean of Students even permitting outsiders with no affiliation to the university to join in.
Expanding the scope of what counts as political violence very much complicates the narrative that right-wing extremists are the primary perpetrators. Left-wing actors, particularly on college and university campuses, engage in politically motivated violence with alarming frequency. And more than that, leftists—whether campus administrators, professors, or students—more often view violence as an appropriate means to silence people with whom they disagree. (Read Peter Wood’s “FIRE Overstates Conservative Censorship on Campus“).
I reported earlier this year, for example, that Nicholas Decker, a PhD student at George Mason University (GMU), published a Substack essay calling for violence against President Trump and his administration. While GMU involved police, the university ultimately took no disciplinary action—an outcome that likely would have been very different had Decker’s target been the Biden administration or had Decker not aligned with the university’s “diversity, equity, and inclusion” orthodoxy.
[RELATED: Advocating Violence Is Permissible—If You’re a Campus Leftist]
And before I wrap things up, I’d note three points I think are worth thinking over.
First, Islamic extremists, as per the Cato report, still commit violence on a scale that exceeds both right- and left-wing actors, yet the left has often expressed solidarity with Islamic terrorist organizations like Hamas, making the distinction between such organizations and left-wing actors increasingly indistinguishable.
Second, the left has far fewer reasons to resort to lethal violence to achieve its political ends because it already controls all of the major pillars of American society—courts, media, higher education, and urban centers—yet it still frequently relies on disruption and intimidation to enforce its views and silence dissent.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, because the left overwhelmingly controls America’s colleges and universities, these institutions have been able—without meaningful opposition—to inculcate students with narratives such as the oppressed-versus-oppressor hierarchy and “speech is violence” mentality, effectively becoming incubators for political radicalization. Leftist administrators and faculty have, for decades, fostered a culture in which silencing—or even eliminating—opposing voices is seen as a legitimate path to victory. While Kirk’s assassin may not have been radicalized in a college classroom, his actions are emblematic of what happens when students are immersed in a culture that normalizes political intimidation and the suppression of dissent.
My observations here are not to be taken as suggesting that political violence is acceptable, that one side’s violence is more justified than the other, or that murder isn’t a meaningful way to categorize political violence. But the story is far more complicated than simplistic narratives that rely solely on lethal outcomes. To really understand who commits political violence, you have to look at disruption, intimidation, and the environments that foster radicalization. Anyone claiming that the right is responsible for most political violence should be taken with a big grain of salt.
Follow Jared Gould on X.
Author’s Note: This article comes from my weekly “Top of Mind” email, which usually goes out to subscribers on Thursdays. It’s a bit delayed this week, as I was away on vacation.
Image: “Charlie Kirk shooting scene close up” by KSL News Utah on Wikimedia Commons
His widow put it best at his funeral — after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, we didn’t see violence, we didn’t see rioting.
No one under the age of 70 has any memory of a political assassination in this country.
The main difference is that the right now has control of the government, and Trump is instructing his subordinates to prosecute former government officials (New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI director James Comey) and ignoring strong evidence of bribery by current government officials (Tom Homan was caught on tape accepting a bag filled with $50,000 in cash from an undercover FBI agent in September 2024–this investigation has now been shut down by Trump officials). Now, one can claim that this is exactly what the left has been doing on college campuses (and there’s a lot of evidence to this effect), but it is an order of magnitude worse when it is the national government–and this is exactly what the founders were reacting against and tried to prevent. No matter what the outcome, this increased lawlessness and shattering of norms will result in a more authoritarian America, no matter who is in charge. I am reminded of the calls for removing the adjudication of sexual assault cases from colleges by the right (a reform I would support), but similarly, the Justice Department needs to be removed from influence by the president–or else it is a KGB. True conservatives would support this reform also.
As for money laundering and bribery, I invite you to look into the Biden family and its dealings with Ukraine and China. As for universities, these intuitions have long been accepting money from foreign entities, and have done the bidding of foreign nations to keep the spigot of foreign dollars flowing. Additionally, we can’t discount that Biden and Obama weaponized the government against their political opponents.
As I recall, Hunter Biden was prosecuted by his father’s administration. Can anyone think Trump would allow that to happen to any family member? No one has every found any type of financial misconduct by Joe Biden (and the Republicans in the House tried for several years), whereas the Trump family has commingled the government and his family’s finances in a blatant fashion. Donald Trump’s net worth has soared with in the White House, as has his offspring’s. The equation of Hunter Biden with his father is a specious right-wing talking point.
Regarding Biden “weaponizing” the government against political opponents, the only opponent who has any type of claim to that mantle is Trump, unless you consider the January 6th participants political opponents (the first time the Capitol has been breached since the British in the War of 1812). As for Obama, there was nothing of this at all.
Since I didn’t mention universities except to criticize them for their approach to jurisprudence, your comments on them accepting foreign monies is not germane to my argument and indicates a Pavlovian polemic response rather than any attempt to address my arguments.
Jared, there may be more to the Tom Homan matter.
A career cop would know how to find out if a company was fictitious — heck, *you* could, all you need to do is find out what state the corporation is supposed to be registered in and check with that state’s Secretary of State’s Office. This is public information. And then there are additional things you have to do to bid on government work — there’s quite a paper trail.
So if a company that doesn’t exist offers you a bribe, and you are honest, what do you do? “Hey FBI…..”
Or you go to the Department’s Inspector General, or a Congressional Oversight Committee, or a variety of other places. And you might accept the money and put it in your safe — until you hand it over as evidence.
Let’s wait and see on this…
Well, I think both sides are plenty guilty. It even goes right to the top? My friend who thinks that we now live in a gangster state, I cannot say that I am completely confident that he is wrong.
Yes it goes right to the top — B. Hussain Obama was the ultimate gangster (if not outright Anti-Christ).
That said, the radical left has been running roughshod in academia for nearly 60 years.
See: https://www.hoover.org/research/day-cornell-died
Both sides are NOT guilty — the thuggery is on the LEFT.
This article offers a compelling perspective on political violence on campuses, challenging the narrative that primarily focuses on right-wing extremism. Its eye-opening to see how left-wing actors also engage in disruptive and intimidating tactics, sometimes with less accountability. The points about university environments fostering radicalization are particularly concerning.
Do you think the assassin of Kirk was radicalized during the semester he attended a state university in Utah several years ago?
Is it possible that growing up in a Mormon family with a sheriff as a father might have had something to do with his development? (I have nothing against Mormons or police, but it’s hard not to notice his family background.)
Jonathan, I don’t know if you’ve taken any child or student development courses (I had to sleep through a few to get various credentials) but the thing here is the rapid change in that one semester at Utah State.
He was a straight A student and the pride of his (Mormon) family. A lot of cop’s sons aren’t squeaky clean…
SOMETHING HAPPENS in that one semester and he winds up as a furry with a tranny/furry boyfriend and now studying to be a mere electrician.
What happened?
“Do you think the assassin of Kirk was radicalized during the semester he attended a state university in Utah several years ago?”
I’ve seen it happen, and it isn’t being radicalized as much as being sheep dipped — stripping away every value and thing that the young person has, leaving malleable clay that then often becomes a monster.
Last night, there was a memorial vigil on the Boston Common in memory of Charlie Kirk.
Notwithstanding a very heavy police presence, it was ended an hour early — at police request — because of threatened violence from ANTAFA. Reportedly, there were concerns about an abandoned backpack filled with toothpaste — toothpaste will give a false positive on explosive sniffers that look for bombs.
Yes, both major newspapers covered this — surprisingly — but can you imagine if the converse of this occurred? Not even someone who was assassinated but someone who had died of old age — e.g. Justice Thurgood Marshall who died in 1993 at the age of 84. I’d more expect to see Boston Harbor frozen over — in August — than to see something like that!
There are two groups of people — ours are loyal Americans, and the other side are domestic terrorists. President Trump, WHEN are you going to do SOMETHING about ANTIFA?!?
And this wasn’t the only incident involving ANTIFA — last weekend, the Maine State Police told Bowdoin College (Brunswick, ME) to cancel a scheduled Kirk vigil because the “Maine Information Analysis Center (MIAC) [had] received an anonymous report about a potential threat related to the vigil.”
And thirty years of dealing with the radical left makes me think that Sunday’s funeral will be very, very messy. I hope and pray that I am wrong, but Charlie said the same thing when he warned about the growing militarism of the left and the likelyhood that someone would get shot.
President Trump, you gotta do something about ANTAFA!
https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2025/09/18/charlie-kirk-vigil-draws-thousands-to-boston-common-ends-suddenly-due-to-safety-concerns-organizer-says/
https://www.bostonherald.com/2025/09/18/vigil-for-charlie-kirk-to-be-held-at-boston-common-on-thursday/