Another stunning outbreak of political violence. Another aftermath filled with more hatred and rhetoric from both sides following conservative activist Charlie Kirk's murder Wednesday on a Utah college campus.
It's a level of political violence America hasn't seen in generations.
The shootings, politically motivated, of former Minnesota Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman and her husband who were killed in June. State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife were also attacked and shot but survived, shocked Minnesota and the nation.
But those shootings, and Kirk's murder, are just the latest incidents in a string of violent attacks on political figures in America.
This Thursday, as Americans reflect on the anniversary of the attacks on 9/11, WCCO Political Analyst Blois Olson says it is a time for reflection on where we find ourselves the day after another burst of violence.
"I was thinking to myself last night, is 24 years ago this country was united by attacks against ourselves, and today we are divided by attacking within," Olson said on the WCCO Morning News. "And that is a dynamic that, generationally, we've never been through. The divide of the 60s and early 70s was extreme. It was violent as well. We came out of that. You can hope that we can find our way forward."
Olson says the level of vitriol and political divide is concerning.
"There is clearly a disturbing subculture of people growing, I'm afraid, that believe this is the way to solve and settle our differences," Olson explains. I don't know if you remember where you were when (President Ronald) Reagan was shot, but I was a young kid and then you look back and you think about like, why John Hinckley did it. It was for fame. Now, everybody who's got this illness has their different reasons. But we have to start understanding it."
Olson adds that America is going through a very dark period.
"I hope the country and both sides take some time to pause and reflect, but I'm not optimistic today," he said.
Incidents of political violence
Former Minnesota House Speaker, Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were shot and killed, while State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife were seriously injured in a shooting in June by the suspect, Vance Boelter, in what was called a targeted political assassination. Boelter also targeted two other Minnesota state lawmakers the same night but was unsuccessful, and had a list of dozens of other Democrat targets, both in the state and across the country.
In April, a man was arrested in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania for attempting to set fire to Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro's home. He told investigators he was "harboring hatred" for the first-term governor.
Earlier this year, Elon Musk, who was an early part of the Trump White House, saw his electric vehicle company Tesla become a target. Trump put Musk in charge of slashing government spending. During that time, Cybertrucks have been torched, and bullets and Molotov cocktails were aimed at Tesla showrooms.
In March, a fire damaged the entryway to the New Mexico Republican Party headquarters and was being being investigated as arson. Spray paint on the side of the building read “ICE=KKK,” an apparent reference to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It happened as deportation efforts against people living in the country illegally were ramped up by the Trump administration.
In June of 2024, an assassination attempt was made against then candidate for President, Donald Trump, at an open-air campaign rally in Pennsylvania. Trump was grazed on the ear by one the bullets fired by a gunman, fatally shooting one Trump supporter and badly wounding two others.
Two months later, another man was detained in Florida after being spotted at Trump’s golf course with a rifle. He allegedly planned to kill the president but was spotted by Secret Service agents.
In 2022, a rightwing conspiracy theorist broke into the home of the Democratic politician Nancy Pelosi, who was the speaker of the House of Representatives at the time. Pelosi was not home at the time, but her husband Paul was attacked with a hammer leaving him with a fractured skull that required surgery.
The Supreme Court has sought millions from Congress for added protection, in response to what the court calls "evolving risks" to the nine justices and their families. There has been a significant increase in threats to judges all across the U.S. in recent years, especially as some circuit judges blocked some of the Trump administration's agenda earlier this year.
Anti-government extremists were arrested in 2020 in what authorities said was a plot to kidnap Michigan's Democratic Governor. The plan was to grab Gretchen Whitmer while she was at her vacation home and "start a civil war." Two men portrayed as the leaders were convicted of conspiracy two years later.
An attacker opened fire with a rifle on Republican lawmakers practicing for a charity baseball game in 2017 in northern Virginia. That shooting critically wounded U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana. Authorities said the shooter, who was killed by police, was fueled by rage against Trump and GOP legislators.
"We're going to have differences," Scalise said after the Charlie Kirk murder this week. "Don't make them personal. Don't try to demonize and you almost make somebody a caricature, a meme instead of a human being, and that's what we all are, and that's what Charlie was."
A Minnesota Congressman said in 2022 he was forced to move from the state because of a threat made against him. Representative Dean Phillips (D) told Chad Hartman on WCCO Radio at the time that threats against public officials are getting out of control.
"We are being subject to threats by disgusting, horrifying antipatriotic people in this country in no small part,” said Phillips. “I had to move recently, Chad, because we were subject to horrifying, horrifying despicable threats, every single one of us, Democrats and Republicans.”
And of course there is the storming of the U.S. Capitol to protest the 2020 presidential election results and Trump’s defeat in that election. Extremist groups carried out an unprecedented assault on the nation’s democracy. That attack left more than 100 police officers injured and threatened the peaceful transfer of power. After winning back the White House, Trump issued a sweeping grant of clemency to all 1,500-plus people charged in the riot.
There are dozens of stories from far lesser-known political officials. Threats to election offices have been a consequence of Trump’s false claims about his 2020 loss. The constant threats and harassment have contributed to an exodus of election officials across the country.