Thom Nickels: Political violence is increasingly one-sided

The National Constitution Center recently hosted a discussion with Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, to reject politicians from the left or the right who encourage contempt for their opponents. The theme of the discussion was that hostile rhetoric was contributing to political violence. The actual physical event took place at the Kimmel Center, not far from Philadelphia's Academy of Music. While I did not attend the Kimmel simulcast, I was present in the Center when the lines of ticket holders began to assemble. Looking over the crowd, I noticed many familiar faces, for the most part Center City Democrats, the same people who voted for Kamala Harris, who participated in No Kings protests, who support the policies of Planned Parenthood. In short, dyed-in-the-wool Philly liberals who probably wouldn’t vote for a Republican if you held a gun to their heads.

The very people, you can bet, who really believe that political violence in 2026 is split down the middle between the left and the right. Or that the greatest threat to democracy is from the right and from white supremacists. Perhaps the one incident clearly identifiable as an example of right-wing violence, and that no true conservative could in conscience deny, is the Charlottesville tragedy of 2017, when a white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters at a “Unite the Right” rally in Virginia, killing one and injuring dozens. During the Cox and Shapiro discussion, an apparently sincere acknowledgement was made of the Charlie Kirk assassination one year ago as an example of political violence from the left. Shapiro also mentioned the attack on the Governor’s Mansion in April 2025 by an unemployed mechanic who had no political affiliation. According to the Center for Strategic & International Studies, “The first half of 2025 was marked by an increase in left-wing terrorist attacks and plots in the United States, which continues a trend noticeable over the last decade. In absolute terms, left-wing incidents are on track in 2025 to reach historically high levels in the last 30 years….From 1994 through 2000, there was an average of 0.6 left-wing incidents annually; in the following decade, that figure doubled to 1.3 a year.” Generally, leftist terrorists operate as loosely affiliated networks or as lone individuals, although that can happen on the right, such as when Paul Pelosi was attacked by a man with a hammer in his home in San Francisco.

Lone left-wing assassin Luigi Mangione, who shot and killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in 2024 on a Manhattan street, is considered a hero by at least 21% of Americans, according to a 2024 poll conducted by Economist/YouGov. Mangione’s good looks (his “killer” Groucho Marx eyebrows) have created fan pods of men and women across the nation. In some circles, Luigi Mangione is made out as “non-partisan,” but that is clearly untrue, especially when the alleged killer stated in one of his manifestos: “When all forms of other communications fail, violence is necessary to survive.” Statistics prove that the bulk of rightwing violence occurred before the Trump presidency. There was the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995; the Olympic Park Bombing and Abortion Clinic attacks in the 1990s; a shooting at a Wisconsin Sikh Temple in 2012; and the Holocaust Museum shooting in 2009. But here’s the rub: No Democratic president in the history of the United States can match the ten assassination attempts on the life of Donald Trump since he entered presidential politics in 2015. Additionally, the 2020 leftwing BLM riots, occurring between May 26 and June 8, alone caused $2 billion worth of damages across the nation. The city of Minneapolis alone suffered $55 million in damages. The riots and assault of ICE officers by leftists have been an ongoing moving picture-show of leftwing violence. In July 2025, USA Today reported that ICE agents were getting hurt amid “ramp-up.” The agents were getting hurt because of rhetoric from Democratic politicians. The report stated that Rep. Hakeem Jeffries implored people to “fight” the Trump Administration “in the streets” and declared ICE agents “will be unsuccessful” in protecting their identities “no matter what it takes.” Rep. Pramila Jayapal called ICE agents “deranged” and said it is “inspiring” to obstruct immigration enforcement. Rep. LaMonica McIver — who was charged with “forcibly impeding and interfering with federal officers” — incited her supporters to “shut down the city” because “we are at war.” Gov. Tim Walz smeared ICE agents as the “modern-day Gestapo.” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu compared ICE agents to the neo-Nazi group NSC-131. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson accused “secret police” of “terrorizing our communities.” The list goes on, proving incontrovertibly that violent rhetoric from the left has not only increased since 2016, but that it often leads to violent or irrational acts, like crazed liberal white women driving their cars into ICE agents. The White House reported that in July 2025, members of an Antifa cell ambushed officers at an ICE facility in Alvarado, Texas: “After defacing vehicles with anti-ICE graffiti — including ‘ICE pig’ and ‘F— you pigs’ — the assailants lured officers out of the building and opened fire, shooting one officer in the neck.” Just this week, on September 13, two unknown leftist activists defaced the statue of Charlie Kirk at the Turning Point USA Headquarters in Phoenix in the middle of the night. Just as they did with the statue of Frank Rizzo near City Hall, the terrorists threw red paint on Kirk’s face, neck and torso. (Rizzo’s statue was defaced multiple times during the 2020 riots; it was spray-painted and graffitied, and at one point women’s clothing, namely a bra, was placed on Rizzo’s chest; that gesture was high irony in my book, since I thought leftists would never use “holy” transgenderism as an insult. The Rizzo statue was removed from its pedestal on orders of then-Mayor Jim Kenney on June 3, 2020.) At the Phoenix Turning Point Headquarters, the monument terrorists also went after a nearby Christian memorial to Kirk when they crossed out the word “Jesus” and scrawled in the word “Satan” in its place. Meanwhile, in the high-vaulted ceilings of the Rafael Vinoly-designed Kimmel Center, Shapiro and Cox talked politely about how to mend fences and stem political violence in today’s Trump-hating culture. While sweet talk can provide the illusion that change is possible, the real question remains: How many Philly Democrats in the audience took this message to heart? Thom Nickels