Progressives virtue signal on political violence. Take a look in the mirror.
I know Donald Trump is capable of stirring people to angry actions. You can highlight Jan. 6, 2021. I can highlight my family’s story.
After I declared I could not support Trump in the 2016 presidential election, men showed up my home to threaten my family. My son got shoved into the dirt on a playground. My daughter received a guide on how to kill herself from her classmates.
My wife announced she had stage 4 cancer with two years to live to her Bible study and a woman in the class said she’d pray but also wanted to hit me. My children were chased through a store by a man yelling at them that their father was destroying the country by not supporting Trump.
I know what Trump is capable of. The problem is that progressives do not seem to appreciate what they themselves are capable of.
Words to ears that will not hear
It was not just immigrants who tore down posters of Israeli hostages after Oct. 7. White progressives tore down the pictures too.
Heather Cox Richardson, the most widely read Substack writer on the planet and a history professor at Boston College, told her 2.9 million subscribers that Charlie Kirk got assassinated by someone from the right.
Majid Padellan, a prominent progressive social media influencer with over a million followers, posted after the latest attempt on Trump’s life, “A lot of people are saying they think the WHCD shooting was staged, as a way to change the narrative from his abysmal approval ratings and his bumbling of the Iran War. What do YOU think? Staged or not staged?”
The suggestion the event was staged spread across Bluesky, the Left’s alternative to Twitter (I simply refuse to call it “X”). Likewise, progressive voices have speculated that the Butler, Pennsylvania, assassination attempt was staged.
What I write will fall on deaf ears but must be said. Progressives can only see themselves as virtuous. Pictures of Israeli hostages must be torn down lest anyone wonder why progressives might march for the interests of Hamas right after Oct. 7. Charlie Kirk’s assassination must be “right-coded” because progressives cannot fathom one of their own would murder a man for his political views. The same is true for multiple attempts on Donald Trump’s life.
Two days after Cole Allen, a California progressive, attempted to kill Trump and others at the April 25 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, CNN’s Manu Raju did a “both sides” segment on CNN and highlighted 10 acts of political violence going back to 2017 to show both sides are doing it.
Based on all the available evidence, I do not think it is fair to say the CDC shooter who killed Officer David Rose, the assassination of Minnesota State Rep. Melissa Hartman and her husband, and the attack on U.S. House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s husband were actually acts of right-wing violence.
The others listed were the attempts on Trump, the death of Charlie Kirk, the attack on Gov. Josh Shapiro, Jan. 6, the Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot, and the mass assassination attempt on Republican members of Congress in 2017.
Notably, CNN left off the attempted assassination of Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh by a progressive activist and the violent attacks on ICE facilities in Dallas, Alvarado, and McAllen, Texas in 2025.
Look at those who think violence is OK
There are two fundamental differences in the lists. First, there are more instances of left-wing assassination attempts. Second, when a right-winger engages in acts of political violence, the Democrats and media together roundly condemn the acts and many Republicans do too. When a left-winger engages in acts of political violence, the Democrats say, “But Trump …” and members of the press says, “Both sides do it.”
The reality is far more problematic. The Network Contagion Research Institute found 56% of people who identify as on the Left “at least somewhat” justified the Butler, Pennsylvania, assassination attempt against Trump. Forty percent justified attacks on Tesla dealerships because of Elon Musk’s ownership. A YouGov poll from 2025 found younger and more liberal Americans are more likely to believe political violence can sometimes be justified. Twenty-five percent of “very liberal” Americans say that compared to 3% of those identified as “very conservative.”
Donald Trump’s rhetoric can provoke people to hostile actions. My family has experienced it. But so too can Democrat rhetoric and Democrats just cannot accept that fact and they refuse to curb their own excesses.
When Democrats say Donald Trump is an existential threat to democracy or compare him to Hitler or claim he will not leave office or that the Supreme Court does nothing to restrain him, etc., they are inspiring people like Cole Allen.
We have had an assassination attempts on Republican congressmen, a Supreme Court justice and the president of the United States, as well as the actual assassination of Charlie Kirk, and multiple attacks on federal agents and police all by left-wing partisans.
Democrats and members of the American political press have together built a permissive structure for left-wing violence that justifies it, excuses it, dismisses it or blames Donald Trump for it.
Academic data continues to show self-identified progressives are ever more willing to engage in political violence. But Democratic politicians and too much of the media will not address it directly. “Both sides do it” is the furthest they will go. They must go further.
Erick Erickson is host of the nationally syndicated “Erick Erickson Show,” heard noon-3 p.m. weekdays on WSB radio. He is also an opinion contributor to the AJC.
