00:00Well, experts who follow political violence in the U.S. worry that the assassination of Charlie Kirk could spark widespread civil unrest.
00:08Well, to put this into some context for us, I'm joined in the studio by Monty Francis from our news desk.
00:13Hi, Monty.
00:14Hi, Inka.
00:14So just help us understand the larger picture when it comes to political violence in the U.S. and where we stand right now.
00:19Well, as you know, there's a long history of political violence in the U.S.
00:23Four U.S. presidents were assassinated while in office.
00:26You have the Civil Rights Movement, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
00:30You have opposition to the war in Vietnam in the 1960s.
00:33But when you take a step back and you look at what's happening recently, one can make an argument that the U.S. is really entering a new phase of political violence.
00:42Let's just take a look at some recent examples of that.
00:45Let's start with the attacks on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, which really seems to have been a turning point of sorts.
00:52Five people died, 140 police officers were injured when a group of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol.
00:58Now, that's followed by the attempted kidnapping of former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in October of 2022 when someone broke into her home looking to kidnap her and attacked her husband with a hammer.
01:09Then you have two assassination attempts on Donald Trump.
01:13The first at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania in 2024 and a foiled attempt at a golf course in Florida in September of last year.
01:21Then in April of this year, you have the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro.
01:25He had his house set on fire.
01:27This past June, two state Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota were shot in their homes along with their spouses.
01:33One of those lawmakers and her husband were killed.
01:36And now, of course, we have the shooting of Charlie Kirk to add to that list.
01:41These are just a few examples.
01:43You know, researchers at the University of Maryland have been tracking this.
01:46They say so far this year there have been 150 politically motivated attacks.
01:51That is twice as many as during the same period last year.
01:54The folks at Reuters have also been tracking this.
01:56They found 300 acts of political violence have taken place since January 6, 2021.
02:01They have concluded that we are now seeing the largest and most sustained surge in political violence in the U.S. since the 1970s.
02:09Those are staggering figures.
02:10What do we know about what's causing this surge in violence?
02:13Well, so experts in domestic terrorism say that there are several factors to look at.
02:17Economic and security plays a role.
02:19Disinformation, conspiracy theories for sure.
02:22But the main reason, experts say, is that the fact that the political discourse has become so polarized and the tone of that discourse has really just devolved.
02:32And if you want proof of this, all you had to do is go on social media today, particularly X, where you just saw all kinds of vitriol.
02:38There were some who disagreed with Charlie Kirk who were actually celebrating his death.
02:43There are some on the extreme right blaming Democrats for Kirk's death, saying that his death should be avenged.
02:49As I said, this vitriol is really at an extreme level.
02:51You have some people even talking about the possibility of a civil war.
02:55We should note Elon Musk, who owns X, said, quote, the left is the party of murder.
03:01That was his comment on X today, a clear example of this kind of polarization.
03:06And what about the rhetoric coming from officials?
03:07How does the reaction of politicians to these acts of violence either fuel the fire or prevent an escalation of more violence?
03:15Well, you're right. Politicians drive the political discourse.
03:17So what they say matters.
03:19You know, there was a shouting match on the floor of the House of Representatives following a moment of silence for Charlie Kirk.
03:25And that is not a usual occurrence.
03:27But one of the most significant ways in which the discourse has changed involves the White House.
03:32You know, historically speaking, there's a real effort on the part of the president to unify the country,
03:37to tamp down the rhetoric in the wake of something like this.
03:40And just to tell you or show you what I mean, let's look at how two former presidents reacted to this Charlie Kirk's killing today.
03:47One Republican, the other a Democrat.
03:49First, George W. Bush, who said, quote, violence and vitriol must be purged from the public square.
03:55Members of other political parties are not our enemies.
03:58They are our fellow citizens.
03:59And Barack Obama echoed that in a statement saying, we don't know yet what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk.
04:06But this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy.
04:11So now let's listen to a portion of Donald Trump's recorded statement about the shooting.
04:15For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass murderers and criminals.
04:29This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today.
04:37And it must stop right now.
04:40So, Yinka, you can see there that although we don't know the identity of the gunman, Trump is there blaming what he calls the radical left for this violence.
04:49Experts say this is the kind of thing that just further serves to polarize the country.
04:54And Monty, what about public opinion in the U.S. when it comes to using force or violence against those that you don't agree with?
05:00Yeah, so there's been a big shift there as well.
05:02Robert Pape, who's a political scientist who's been following this for 30 years, he wrote an article in New York Times today,
05:08and he shared some findings of a survey his organization did back in May.
05:12It found that 40 percent of Democrats favored using force to remove Donald Trump from office.
05:1725 percent of Republicans favored using force to stop anti-Trump protests.
05:23And overall, about 9 percent of Americans said that the use of force by ordinary citizens was necessary to achieve their political goals.
05:30We should point out the vast majority of Americans still don't support this idea of the use of force,
05:35but the numbers are up, comparatively speaking, which is why experts are so concerned.
05:40Yeah, it is definitely something to worry about.
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