In a Time of Tumult More Are Choosing to Act On Their Own With Violence.

Several seemingly unconnected events in the last year indicate a growing tendency in the United States toward lone actor political violence.

The series begins last summer with the dual assassination attempts on then candidate for president Donald Trump. First in Pennsylvania and a few weeks later near his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida. The motivations in these two cases were different, but the two men involved shared the decision to take action personally.

In the first case, the man who carried out the shooting, that came dangerously close to being fatal, appears to have been motivated by fame. Before he took a shot at Trump he had also researched scheduled campaign appearances by President Biden. He was looking for a high profile target apparently without regard to where that target stood on the political spectrum. A few weeks later, in Florida, the shooting suspect had specifically made a decision to attack Trump. His decision to make the attempt at a golf course showed an understanding of where Trump would be most vulnerable.

In December, the head of United Healthcare, Brian Thompson, was shot and killed in New York City. Luigi Mangione has been charged with his murder. According to police, Mangione’s motive was tied to his personal feelings about the unfairness of the U.S. healthcare system. Once again, in this case, it appears Mangione had carefully studied Thompson’s movements and knew where the CEO would be and when he would be there on the morning he was killed.

In April, a man who police say expressed “hatred” for Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and sympathy toward Palestinians, set fire to the governor’s residence, doing extensive damage to the first floor of the building as Shapiro and his family slept upstairs.

In May, two employees of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., were shot to death outside an event at the Jewish Museum in an attack that appears to be connected to the conflict between Israel and Hamas. The man accused in the shooting knew in advance that an event would be underway at the museum on the night of the shooting and was prepared to be arrested on site as part of the political statement he wanted to make.

In June, a man used Molotov cocktails and a flame-thrower to attack a group of Jewish people marching for the freedom of Israeli hostages held in Gaza. The evidence suggests the attacker knew his targets would be taking part in the demonstration at a scheduled time and he stayed on scene after the attack so his anti-Zionist motives would be clear.

Since the beginning of the year, there have been several attacks on Tesla cars and Tesla facilities as the company’s owner, Elon Musk, launched controversial efforts to shrink the size of the U.S. government through dramatic reductions in the workforce.

There have been other smaller scale uses of violence around the country in the last few years that have not gained the same level of national attention, but they include random gunfire aimed at political party headquarters buildings, bomb threats, and threats against lawmakers and judges.

In 2022, a man acting on his own, broke into the San Francisco home of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Unable to find her, he attacked her husband Paul with a hammer.

What all these incidents have in common is the decision by one person to take violent action on their own. Setting aside the mental health of the perpetrators, the trend indicates a new comfort with justifying the use of violence to make a political point. In most cases, the advance planning indicates the attackers had some control over their mental state.

A Marist poll done in June of 2024 for PBS and NPR found that one in five Americans think violence may be necessary to end political divisions in the country. It is against this back drop that we need to consider the latest string of politically motivated attacks.

The way these incidents are reported in the news media have taken on a partisan tone. Almost immediately after a violent event is reported, there is a scramble to determine whether the attacker is Republican or Democrat, pro-Trump or anti-Trump, or whether the suspect was motivated by hate toward the group his target represents. This is not a matter of the news media trying to politicize violence or divide the country in an effort to expand audience, it’s a reflection of the general sense that politics is a growing motivation behind the use of violence.

Public opinion polls on the mood of the country are another place to look to try to understand the environment contributing to the justification of violence. Most people think the United States is headed in the wrong direction.

Gallup (May 2025)

38% Satisfied 59% Unsatisfied

YouGov (May 2025)

41% Right Track 51%Wrong Track

IPSOS (May 2025)

42% Right Track. 52% Wrong Track

How we consume news about the state of our world and the volume of information coming at us on an hourly basis can be overwhelming. We are all bound to find ways to get away from it all. To tune out to maintain our own mental health. But there are times when we can’t look away and we begin to ask ourselves what if anything we can do to make things better? For some, this leads to irrational thought.

It is reasonable to conclude that in a country of 330 million people a small, but significant number may conclude that it makes sense to take matters into their own hands.

President Trump is not the best leader to address the problem. Since his first campaign, he has embraced the use of violence, encouraged it in some cases, and looked the other way when it helped his cause. Always denying any personal responsibility for the actions of others. But there is a societal cost to Trump’s divide and lead strategy. The danger is it could come back on him as it did last summer.

In Pennsylvania, when a bullet grazed Trump’s right ear and left one person in the audience dead, most leaders publicly expressed thanks that Trump’s life was spared and condemned political violence of any kind. What was not said then, and should be said now is; Trump’s own words and behavior in the arena have contributed to the circumstances that led not one — but two people — to conclude there was merit in the idea of trying to kill him. To take action into their own hands.

I would not waste my time by asking President Trump to change his approach. He won’t. He is attracted to violence and is impressed by those who use it for almost any cause. He does not see the injustice of Russia’s war against Ukraine. He had no sympathy for Paul Pelosi after he was attacked and almost beaten to death in his home. While tens of thousands of people are killed or displaced in Gaza he sees only the opportunity for a real estate deal. His public offers of sympathy to Israel after the October 7 attacks, or to any victim of violence in this country, are rote, scripted, and insincere. For Trump, violence is part of life and those who fall victim are unlucky.

Trump is only part of the problem. The pace of modern life and the information space we all inhabit are contributing factors to the general unease in our country and the world. The cauldron is boiling over and the result is an increase in political violence carried out by lone actors who have decided individual action is their last desperate path to personal peace. It’s a dead end, but one I suspect more will be willing to take.

Inflection Point
June 10, 2025

For more writing on politics, public relations, and journalism by Dean Pagani visit Media Attaché on Substack.