Where Political Violence Comes From

This past week, the right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated at Utah Valley University. Kirk, a close ally of President Donald Trump’s, was thirty-one years old. Tyler Robinson, a twenty-two-year-old Utah resident, has been accused of the murder. It is the latest in a string of attacks on American political figures: the shooting of two Minnesota state lawmakers and their spouses in June, two attempts on the life of President Trump during last year’s Presidential campaign, and the January 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol, to name a few.

I recently spoke by phone with Lilliana Mason, a professor of political science at the Johns Hopkins S.N.F. Agora Institute and an expert on political violence. In 2022, she co-wrote, with Nathan P. Kalmoe, the book “ Radical Ame