A disturbing new report has uncovered a troubling trend: violent political rhetoric — including open calls for the assassination of public figures like President Donald Trump and Elon Musk — is rapidly becoming normalized on the left.
According to the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), more people are now not only rationalizing politically motivated violence but celebrating it as some twisted form of social justice. The shift is alarming, and the data shows that it’s been accelerating in recent months.
“What was formerly taboo culturally has become acceptable,” Joel Finkelstein, the founder of NCRI, told Fox News Digital. “We are seeing a clear shift – glorification, increased attempts and changing norms – all converging into what we define as ‘assassination culture.’”
The NCRI study links this cultural shift to the December 2024 assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson by Luigi Mangione. In the aftermath, researchers observed a disturbing surge of viral memes glorifying Mangione, which effectively turned him into a folk hero among certain corners of the internet. As a result, there has been a surge of copycat behavior targeting wealthy and conservative public figures.
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“It’s not just Luigi anymore,” Finkelstein, the lead author of the report, explained. “We’re seeing an expansion: Trump, Musk and others are now being openly discussed as legitimate targets, often cloaked in meme culture and gamified online dialogue.”
The recent ballot measure in California named after Mangione is just one example of this phenomenon.
“These are not isolated opinions,” the report says. “They are part of a tightly connected belief system linked to what we call left-wing authoritarianism.”
NCRI conducted a nationally representative survey of more than 1,200 U.S. adults, weighted to reflect national census demographics. The findings were stark: Some 38% of respondents said it would be at least “somewhat justified” to murder Donald Trump, and 31% said the same about Elon Musk.
When counting only left-leaning respondents, justification for killing Trump rose to 55% and Musk to 48%.
Roughly half of the people on the left think that assassinating Donald Trump or Elon Musk is morally justifiable. Of course, we knew this already. After the first assassination attempt on Trump back in July 2024 at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., many on the left took to social media to lament the fact that the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, missed.
When asked whether destroying a Tesla dealership was justified, nearly four in 10 respondents agreed it was, to some degree. Among self-identified left-of-center participants, support for vandalism and property damage was significantly higher.
“Property destruction wasn’t just an outlier opinion, it clustered tightly with support for political assassinations and other forms of violence,” Finkelstein told Fox News Digital. “This points to a coherent belief system, not just isolated grievances.”
BlueSky, the social media platform that the left currently prefers over X, has been the source of much of this radicalization.
“BlueSky was modeled as a safe alternative to Twitter for the left, but what it’s become is an extremist platform,” Finkelstein explained. “It functions today much like 4chan or Gab once did for far-right ideologies. These platforms are now lead indicators of violent real-world trends.”
While Finkelstein rejects censorship as a solution, he argues that moral clarity from leaders — particularly on the left — could help dismantle this culture of glorified violence. The report ends with a sobering reminder: this rhetoric is already translating into real-world attacks. Political violence, once fringe, is now dangerously close to becoming culturally acceptable.
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