By As many know, Democrats are often followers, obsessively protesting on behalf of the next “thing,” whether it’s Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, Ukraine, or in favor of Hamas. Now, however, their belief system is, according to research, becoming more prone to violence.
A recent study conducted by the Network Contagion Research Institute, in partnership with Rutgers University’s Social Perception Lab, identifies a chilling development within the digital margins of the American far left: the emergence of what researchers have termed an “assassination culture”—an ideological formation that not only tolerates, but romanticizes political violence. The study, Assassination Culture: How Burning Teslas and Killing Billionaires Became a Meme Aesthetic for Political Violence, offers a disquieting window into a growing subculture in which memes, viral slogans, and ironic detachment are coalescing into something far darker, writes The Daily Caller.
A new survey finds an “assassination culture” growing on the American left since the attempted killing of President Donald Trump in July 2024.
Data released Monday from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) found “48% and 55%” of “left of center” people “at least somewhat justifying murder for Elon Musk and President Trump, respectively.” The findings come after a historically violent election season in 2024, which saw two assassination attempts on Trump in July and September.
“These attitudes are not fringe—they reflect an emergent assassination culture, grounded in far-left authoritarianism and increasingly normalized in digital discourse,” the NCRI wrote. The group produced its study with the Rutgers University Social Perception Lab and surveyed 1264 U.S. citizens about their attitudes toward political violence.
When surveying all respondents, only 38% said killing Trump would be “at least somewhat justified,” meaning there was “significantly higher justification” among self-identified liberals specifically, the NCRI said.
The group also found that 39% of U.S. residents think “it is at least somewhat acceptable (or more) to destroy a Tesla dealership in protest” of Musk, who now leads Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) but is also Tesla’s CEO.
Rutgers study reveals assassination culture.
Among Americans identifying themselves as left-of-center:
48.6% say that murdering Elon Musk is justified.
55.2% say that murdering President Trump is justified.https://t.co/k5UORBLY0y pic.twitter.com/REETGOnNfZ
— J Michael Waller (@JMichaelWaller) April 8, 2025
These statistics, however, are not presented as isolated pathologies. Rather, the report’s central argument is that such views are becoming increasingly normalized—not within clandestine cells or militant groups—but in plain sight, across online platforms where irony masks incitement, and memes function as ideological transmission devices.
The aestheticization of violence is not merely metaphorical. The study points to a real-world ballot initiative in California—the “Luigi Mangione Access to Health Care Act”—named after the alleged assassin of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. While absurd on its face, the initiative traffics in a kind of sardonic radicalism that transforms a killing into a memeable act of “resistance.” Mangione himself has been reimagined as Luigi from the Super Mario franchise, his digital iconography circulating in the same channels that popularized incendiary slogans—some of which reportedly appeared on the bullet casings used in Thompson’s murder.
ATTENTION SECRET SERVICE | THIS LOOKS LIKE AN ASSASSINATION THREAT AGAINST PRESIDENT TRUMP AND ELON MUSK.pic.twitter.com/pAjXHw4sRu
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) April 6, 2025
Platforms like BlueSky, the report notes, have become ideological sanctuaries for disaffected users fleeing Elon Musk’s Twitter. BlueSky is singled out for playing a “significant and predictive role” in the diffusion of extremist memes, functioning as a kind of accelerant for political polarization cloaked in anti-establishment chic.
What is at stake here is not simply platform moderation, nor even the boundaries of acceptable speech. At issue is a deeper erosion of democratic norms—one in which assassination becomes not merely thinkable, but shareable, remixable, even “justified” in the eyes of a growing number of young, radicalized users.
This is not the first survey to reveal that leftwing activists have become more accepting of political violence.
Polling by the Southern Law Poverty Center, a liberal activist group, in 2022 revealed that a “distressingly” large number of young, male Democrats, like the one who tried to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, support assassinating politicians to achieve their political aims.
The poll stated, “Young Democratic men were the most agreeable to the idea, with 44% saying they could countenance such an assassination. Younger Republican women ranked second, with 40% approving of the idea. Older folks — defined as those 50 and older — were not fans of assassination, no matter their party or gender.”
In January, President Trump named Sean Curran, the agent who protected him during the Butler shooting, to lead and reform the Secret Service.
Curran replaced Ron Rowe, who filled the role of acting director after Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle stepped down following harsh backlash for the agency’s failure to prevent a would-be assassin from murdering Trump during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania that led to the death of one of Trump’s supporters, Cory Comperatore. After the shooting, it was revealed that Cheatle had personally cut the then-Republican frontrunner’s protective detail despite known threats against him.
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