AlterNet
In an article for Politico published Sunday, reporters Jessica Piper and Aaron Pellish noted that while politically motivated violence in the United States is increasing — targeting everything from state governors to Supreme Court justices — each new attack is leaving less of an imprint on the public consciousness, as Americans grow quickly desensitized to such incidents.
Piper and Pellish noted that though threats and violent acts continue to rise in frequency and severity, the attention they command, both in media coverage (newspaper front pages) and in public interest (as measured by Google searches), is waning rapidly.
They added that even shocking events like the recent assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk or the shooting of legislative figures grab headlines but slip out of view much faster than similar incidents in previous years.
This pattern, they warned, suggests a kind of civic immune system building up: exposure to political violence reduces the emotional and cognitive reaction it elicits.
"Each attack may seem shocking, but the incidents are leaving less of a mark on the national consciousness," the report said.
Experts cited in the article say that when people see violence repeatedly, their early shock begins to dull, and the societal impulse to demand change fades.
Matt Dallek, a political historian at The George Washington University, told Politico: "You’d have to go back to the pre-Civil War era to find a similar level of threat and acts of physical violence against lawmakers."
They also pointed out that the scale and targets of political violence have expanded — books, social media, incendiary rhetoric, threats, even arson — moving well beyond rare, exceptional events.
Yet despite this escalation, the public's heightened exposure seems to be breeding a kind of passive normalization rather than resistance.
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