PA Reacts to Murder of MN Legislator, Rise in Political Violence
The murder of a Minnesota legislator and the attempted assassination of another last weekend pushed the issue of political violence to the forefront.
On Monday, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives held a moment of silence for the fallen Democratic state representative killed by a politically-motivated assassin. And Philadelphia Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D) has proposed legislation designed to increase security for members of state government.
Kenyatta’s proposal would allow legislators to use campaign funds to cover costs of personal security and would task the State Police with providing security for the House speaker, Senate president pro tempore, governor, lieutenant governor, auditor general, attorney general, and state treasurer.
“Let’s be clear: what happened in Minnesota wasn’t just tragic—it was a deliberate, evil act of political violence,” Kenyatta said.
“This cannot become normal. No matter your party or position, no one signs up for public service thinking their life or the lives of their loved ones, will be at risk. We should be able to serve and engage with our communities without fear,” Kenyatta added.
The attacks in Minnesota are part of a rising tide of political violence that has already reached Pennsylvania.
An arsonist set fire to the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion in April while Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family slept. And last year, an assassin came within inches of killing President Donald Trump as he campaigned in Butler, Pa.
Now political observers are asking why political violence is on the rise, and why is so much of it coming from the left wing of American politics?
Experts at the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) say they’re seeing an “alarming rise in assassination culture.” The group, affiliated with Rutgers, studies hate, extremism, and manipulation on online platforms and tracks threats.
“Violence targeting figures like Donald Trump or Elon Musk has gone beyond normalization—it’s being sanctified as resistance by parts of the political left,” NCRI’s Max Horder told Newsweek.
Take the example of Luigi Mangione, the private-school graduate from a wealthy family charged with murdering a healthcare executive on the streets of New York City. The left-wing assassin was quickly embraced as a cause célèbre by some progressives. A poll taken in December found 41 percent of voters under the age of 30 found Mangione’s deadly attack “acceptable.”
Tal Fortgang, legal policy fellow with The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, told DVJournal the violence is linked to the polarization in American politics.
Trump is “obviously a polarizing figure, who clearly drives many people to despair, and to take drastic action,” said Fortgang. But polarization can’t be allowed to legitimize violence, he added. “Trump’s not the first unpopular president we’ve ever had, and the burning quality of one’s hatred of our president does not legitimize lashing out against anyone in any way. I mean, frankly, it doesn’t.”
Personalizing your polarized politics can lead to the sorts of violence targeting Tesla cars and Tesla showrooms. Elon Musk’s electric vehicles have long been popular with progressives; but once he joined the Trump White House, he became the target of protests and violent rhetoric.
Regarding Mangione, Fortgang said, “There’s a mass movement that celebrates the person they believe to be a killer, not because they think he’s innocent but because they believe he is the killer. They believe he committed homicide, and that’s why they love him.”
“I’m shocked but I’m surprised,” he said. He noted that few people are pacifists and most believe in self-defense. But “when is one justified in taking violent preemptive action? What’s disturbing about the Mangione incident is that there is a language of self-defense that arose around shooting an executive in the back, execution-style, that does not really match our traditional notions of self-defense here in the United States.”
Having such large groups of people believe Mangione was justified and even a hero is “an existential problem for a free society.”
Is political violence getting worse? In the 1960s, President John F. Kennedy, U.S. Sen. Robert Kennedy, the Rev. Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X, were assassinated. There were numerous riots against the Vietnam War, including a large one in Chicago during the Democratic National Convention. Members of the Weather Underground set off bombs, including one at the U.S. Capitol.
Asked about whether there’s been more political violence lately than in previous eras, like the 1960s,” Fortgang said, “More people are quick to justify political violence for one reason or another. We’ve developed a more expansive vocabulary for justifying or dismissing political violence than we had in the past.”
