White House Correspondents’ Dinner Aftermath: Many Americans Entertain the Idea of Violence

After the Secret Service apprehended an armed intruder sprinting toward the ballroom at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner last month, where President Donald Trump, the vice president, cabinet members, senators, and representatives sat, public figures issued familiar refrains of disapproval and regret.  

President Barack Obama pronounced, “It’s incumbent upon all of us to reject the idea that violence has any place in our democracy.” Following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert Kennedy (senior) uttered perhaps the most poignant expression of this type, less than two months before he, too, was assassinated: “What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr’s cause has ever been stilled by his assassin’s bullet.”  

Fine sentiments all, but evidence tells us that large swaths of Americans, across parties and political beliefs, accept and even endorse political violence. It’s embedded in our political culture, transcending debates over panaceas such as gun control or greater access to mental health care.  

Earlier this year, I reviewed in these pages the startling levels of support for political violence among self-identified members of the MAGA mass movement. A recent, largescale academic study of more than 7,000 Americans of every political leaning by the Violence Prevention Research Center at the University of California, Davis, reported that 83 percent of its sample of 1,128 MAGA followers said the American way of life was disappearing so fast that force may be required to save it, and 61 percent endorsed violence and force to stop protests by those with whom they disagree.  

More disturbing, when MAGA believers were asked whether they would personally be willing to use violence against a federal or state official to advance their political objectives, 11 percent said yes; based on surveys of the MAGA movement, that translates to 4.4 million people. Some 5 percent also said they would be personally willing to attack people who don’t share their views.  

Liberals cannot feel smug about these numbers: MAGA believers are not alone in their willingness to consider violence. Democrats, Independents, and non-MAGA Republicans may be less likely to endorse violence in politics or participate in it. But most Americans are Democrats, Independents, or non-MAGA Republicans, so those who do agree add up.  

In addition to its sample of MAGA believers, the study recorded responses from 2,211 non-MAGA Republicans and 3,916 Independents and Democrats. The Census Bureau tells us that 174 million Americans are registered to vote, so, based on recent Gallup surveys, 47 million, or 27 percent, call themselves Republicans, another 47 million, or 27 percent, call themselves Democrats, and 45 percent, or 78 million, identify as Independents.  

For the record, Pew Research reports that when Independents were asked which party they lean towards, they split nearly evenly: 46 percent of Independents said they lean Republican, 45 percent said they lean Democratic, and the rest said they don’t lean at all.  

On the threshold issue of whether force or violence may be required to preserve the American way of life, 28 percent of Democrats and Independents and 48 percent of non-MAGA Republicans said yes, alongside the 83 percent of MAGA believers. It suggests that 57 million non-MAGA Americans see a potentially legitimate role for violence in our politics, a signal that violence-as-legitimate-recourse is well embedded in the culture. 

The “violence is okay” numbers decline when survey researchers offer more specific scenarios, but they remain substantial, even alarming. Some 17 percent of Democrats and Independents and 14 percent of non-MAGA Republicans join the 22 percent of MAGA who say force or violence is justified to advance political ends they see as important. That translates into some 28 million non-MAGA Americans open to tolerating violence when the political cause matters to them.  

When the question is flipped to the use of force and violence in opposing actions by the government, support is comparable or greater. In principle, 17 percent of non-MAGA Republicans and 13 percent of Democrats and Independents are on board, along with 27 percent of MAGA followers. That suggests that some 24 million Americans consider legitimate the use of force and violence to oppose the government when it does not share their beliefs.  

Drilling down to gauge how many people would themselves engage in political violence, the study found that 6 percent of non-MAGA Republicans and 7 percent of Democrats and Independents joined 11 percent of MAGA believers in saying they would personally be willing to engage in force or violence against an elected official when it was justified to advance an important political objective. That adds up to 11.6 million Americans.  

Finally, there is the question that the alleged assailant at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner presumably answered in the affirmative: “Thinking now about the future and all the changes it might bring, how likely is it that you will use a gun … in a situation where you think force or violence is justified to advance an important political objective?”  

About 2 percent of non-MAGA Republicans, 3 percent of Democrats and Independents, and 4 percent of MAGA followers responded that it was somewhat likely, and another 1 percent of each group said it was “very or extremely likely.” That hardcore 1 percent who expect to personally use a gun to advance or protect their political goals add up to nearly 2 million Americans. 

Of course, there is a difference between what people say and what they do. Political violence or violent plots are not regular occurrences. They are also no longer rare.  

In 2024, there were two direct attempts on the life of candidate Trump, including one that killed a bystander, three gunfire-strafing incidents of Kamala Harris’ campaign offices, and two foiled murder-for-hire plots targeting Trump sponsored by Iran. (Anyone else thinking retaliation here?) In 2022, an American savagely attacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s octogenarian husband. Last year, politically-motivated citizen assassins set fire to the home of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, killed the prominent, conservative organizer Charlie Kirk, murdered former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, and shot and injured another Minnesota lawmaker and his wife. 

The murder of the CEO of United Health Care was politically motivated, a young gunman in Wisconsin shot his parents to fund his plot to assassinate President Trump, politically-inspired killers took down two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington D.C. following a Jewish event, a shooter shot nearly 500 rounds into the Atlanta headquarters of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, an arsonist set fire to the headquarters of the New Mexico Republican party, and the Secret Service discovered a hunting stand with a line of sight to the landing zone of Air Force One at the Plam Beach International Airport, one day before the president was scheduled to arrive there.  

So far this year, an attacker assaulted Representative Ilhan Omar, Secret Service officers killed a young man armed with a pump-action shotgun who slipped past security at Mar-a-Lago, and, most recently, apprehended the armed man trying to storm the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. And the U.S. Capitol Police report that they investigated 14,936 threats against members of Congress, their families, and staff in 2025, up from an average of 8,644 per year from 2020 to 2024. 

Broad toleration of violence in American politics is also evident in the confrontations between immigration and community advocates and federal agents of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and CBP (Customs and Border Protection). Non-violent demonstrations have stopped the construction of mass detention facilities across the country in the long tradition of constitutionally protected assembly and dissent. But shootings and beatings of immigrants and protesters, as well as ICE and CBP agents, represent the use of violence for political ends, especially but not only by the government, on a scale not seen since the conflicts between workers and state militias and the private security forces of factory owners in the Gilded Age. 

Verifiable data are still developing, but there is clear evidence that ICE and CBP agents have killed nine people in incidents in Texas, Illinois, Minnesota, and Vermont, and shot and injured 34 people in Illinois, California, Maryland, Minnesota, and Arizona, often justified by claims that the victims were “not following directions.” The administration’s tolerance of violence as a legitimate tool is evident in the federal government decision to not file criminal charges against any agent involved, a position clearly articulated by deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller: “To all ICE officers: You have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties, and anybody who lays a hand on you, or tries to stop you, or tries to obstruct you, is committing a felony.”  

On the other side, there are three documented cases of people shooting at ICE and CBP agents, and one case in which a sniper attacking an ICE facility in Dallas inadvertently killed two detainees. Many violent incidents did not involve shootings. In the El Centro sector of California, there were 83 documented cases of people assaulting ICE and CBP agents in recent years, alongside 300 documented cases of ICE and CBP agents assaulting people.  

Circling back to where we began, it turns out that how political leaders respond to political violence does matter, and usually in ways that make matters worse. Rachel Kleinfeld, a leading scholar on the growth of violence in democracies, has concluded that “leaders’ rhetoric has the power to de-escalate and deter violence … (but) only if they are willing to speak against their own side.” Instead, as Thomas Zeitzoff, an expert in how leaders mobilize supporters for violent political conflict, has found, political leaders who blame the victim’s side signal that violence against the other side is understandable, and their supporters who harbor violent tendencies shouldn’t fear any rebuke from their leader.  

The dynamic in which each side blames the other and dismisses any responsibility for itself may play a critical role in the growing acceptance of political violence in the United States. When a Trump follower beat Paul Pelosi with a hammer, President Trump, his son Donald, Jr., and Elon Musk joked publicly about it. Trump also dismissed the murders of Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Hortman and her husband by one of his supporters, and he and Vice President JD Vance blamed Democrats for the assassination plots targeting Trump and Charlie Kirk’s murder. When ICE agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, the President described said Good “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE officer,” and called an “agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist.” When videos contradicting his claims came to public light, Trump said the shootings “should have not happened,” but when pressed on whether the deaths were justified, said he would “always be with our great people of law enforcement.” For their part, many Democrats blamed a posting by Sarah Palin for the shooting of Representative Gabby Giffords and the deaths of six other people in 2011, and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker recently pinned Kirk’s killing on Trump’s rhetoric. 

Experts on political violence also warn that unless leaders stop partisan finger-pointing and accept more responsibility, political violence in the United States could worsen. Drawing on extensive data analysis, Taegyoon Kim, the Korean social scientist, has concluded that “the inflaming effect of partisan elites’ threatening rhetoric—and the absence of counteracting behavior—suggest a potentially pernicious dynamic where partisan elites and their followers mutually escalate violent hostility.” Similarly, suggests that Americans’ growing acceptance of political violence may lead to escalating bloodshed: “Once violence begins, it fuels itself,” she warns. “Far from making people turn away in horror, political violence in the present is the greatest factor normalizing it for the future.”