The Real “Party of Murder”: Right-Wing Violence, Hypocrisy and the Fight for Democracy

Exposing the violent truth behind MAGA’s gaslighting and the oligarchs who fuel it.

Charlie Kirk is dead. A family grieves. A community is shaken. A country should have paused. Instead, Elon Musk jumped online and smeared the left as “the party of murder.” Donald Trump instantly blamed “the radical left”, with zero evidence . They didn’t wait for investigators or facts. They wasted no time unleashing a barrage of baseless accusations. They seized on a convenient narrative and rammed it into the fresh wound of this tragedy.

This is not leadership. It is a con, a calculated method. Accuse first; build a story later; repeat until doubt sounds like guilt. That is how strongmen operate. It doesn’t protect a nation, it poisons it. It softens up a public to accept any lie. It turns tragedy into propaganda fuel. It’s cynical, it’s dangerous, and it’s exactly what we’re seeing now.

The hypocrisy was immediate and staggering. Just weeks before Charlie Kirk’s killing, a far-right MAGA extremist literally assassinated a Democratic state legislator in Minnesota along with her husband, and even their family dog . The same attacker also shot and wounded another Democratic state senator and his wife, and when police caught him they found he had a hit list of nearly 70 people (mostly Democratic politicians, abortion providers, and other liberal advocates) he planned to murder. Was there any national moral outcry from the right over that political massacre? No. Silence. Or worse, deflection, false accusations, Move on. Republican leaders didn’t storm onto Fox News decrying “right-wing terrorism” or reflecting on their movement’s tone. They barely acknowledged it. Yet now that a prominent far-right agitator (Kirk) has been slain, the same voices rush to paint half the country as complicit killers. The double standard is as brazen as it is sickening.

Hypocrisy and Hysteria After a Tragedy

Charlie Kirk’s shooting should have been a moment for all leaders to call for calm, restraint, and unity against violence. Instead, the American right immediately went scorched-earth, using the tragedy as fodder for their culture war. The propaganda machine kicked into gear within minutes. Right-wing pundits and politicians howled for vengeance. “This is war,” bellowed conspiracy peddler Alex Jones on his show. Republican lawmakers thundered about “left-wing political violence.” MAGA influencers on social media shrieked that “The Left are terrorists” who must be crushed. Musk himself amplified the frenzy, telling a far-right rally that “the left is the party of murder and celebrating murder” , and warning the crowd that “violence is coming… you either fight back or die” . The message from all corners of the right was deafeningly clear: one of ours was killed, so all of them are to blame.

This collectivist blood libel against tens of millions of Americans is grotesque and utterly divorced from reality. They are smearing an entire half of the country, anyone not on the Trump train, as having blood on their hands for Kirk’s death. It’s a vile generalization, a toxic lie on a national scale. Let’s call it plainly: it’s utter bullshit. And they know it. But truth means nothing when a useful narrative is at hand.

Here’s what we actually know so far about Kirk’s killing. The suspect is in custody. Authorities have identified him as a 22-year-old man from a deeply conservative Republican family in Utah. His social media history and bizarre clues left at the scene suggest personal grievances and immersion in obscure online subcultures, but no clear links to any leftist groups or causes. In fact, members of his own family have said the entire family are MAGA supporters. Investigators have found zero evidence that this was some kind of left-wing hit job or Antifa plot. If anything, early indications are that the shooter had absorbed elements of the right’s own conspiratorial and bigoted thinking (his rambling bullet inscriptions referenced memes about “fascists” and even a homophobic joke, a weird mix clearly born of internet fever swamps rather than any mainstream left activism). In other words, there is absolutely no proof that Kirk’s murder was ordered by “the left”, none. Yet Trump and Musk didn’t skip a beat. They saw an opportunity to scapegoat their political opponents, and they pounced without a shred of evidence. Even after the suspect’s background came to light, did any of these figures correct themselves? Of course not. They just doubled down on the lie. Musk, addressing that far-right rally in London days later, still thundered that “the left was the party of murder”, conveniently ignoring the inconvenient truth of Kirk’s case. In the authoritarian playbook, truth is nothing compared to a useful narrative.

We’ve seen this act before. The very movement that is steeped in political intimidation, vigilante threats, and actual bloodshed now plays the victim the moment one of its own is harmed. They cast themselves as innocent targets under attack, while painting their opponents as inherently violent. It’s projection of the highest order, gaslighting on a national scale. And it cannot go unchallenged.

Let’s be crystal clear: political violence in America today is overwhelmingly a right-wing phenomenon. That’s not partisan rhetoric, it’s established fact. Over the past decade, the vast majority of extremist murders and terror plots in this country have come from the far right, not the left. Year after year, white supremacists, anti-government militias, and hardcore MAGA vigilantes commit shootings, bombings, kidnappings, and plots, while crimes by left-wing extremists are comparatively rare. In 2022, for example, every single ideologically-driven mass killing in the United States was committed by a far-right extremist. Preliminary data for 2023 show the same lethal trend: all extremist-related killings in 2023 were linked to right-wing extremism. This isn’t a “both sides” issue, not by a long shot. One side of the political spectrum, the extreme right, has by far been the main source of domestic terror. You wouldn’t know this listening to Republican officials or watching Fox News. They either ignore right-wing violence entirely or cynically invent false equivalences, loudly blaming “Antifa” or Black Lives Matter for things they didn’t do. But the data tells the story, and so do the horrific headlines from one incident after another that somehow never become “national conversations” about violent ideologies breeding on the right.

The Blood-Soaked Reality of Right-Wing Violence

Pro-Trump rioters swarm the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 - a violent attempt to overthrow American democracy incited by Donald Trump’s election lies. The vast majority of political violence in modern America has come from the far right, not the left.

Strip away the spin and look at the pattern: almost every recent act of political terror or mass violence has emerged from the extreme right. We have far too many examples to list, but let’s recall just a few of the bloody incidents that the MAGA crowd conveniently glosses over or quickly are involved in or moves past:

• The January 6th Insurrection (2021): A violent mob of thousands, whipped into a frenzy by Donald Trump’s election lies, attacked the U.S. Capitol to overturn a democratic election. Rioters brutalised police officers (nearly 140 officers injured, some with brain injuries and smashed spinal discs), erected a gallows and chanted about lynching the Vice President, and hunted lawmakers through the halls of Congress. This was political violence on a historic scale, broadcast live to the world. The response from the right? Downplay and denial. Many Republicans absurdly minimize the attack as a “peaceful protest” or a tourist visit. Trump himself famously called these violent insurrectionists “patriots,” and he promised them pardons. And in fact, upon regaining the presidency in 2025, Trump wasted no time making good on that promise, issuing blanket clemency for nearly 1,600 Jan. 6 rioters on his first day back in office. He set free hundreds of people who had attacked Congress and our democracy, including convicted seditionists from the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, and even individuals who were facing unrelated charges for child sexual assault and child pornography. Yes, you read that correctly: the self-proclaimed “law and order” president pardoned people accused of raping children, as long as they had stormed the Capitol in his name. He effectively told the nation that attempting to overthrow the government by force is excusable, even praiseworthy, if it’s done for the right cause (his cause). And now, many of those pardoned insurrectionists are actually trying to play victim: they’re seeking financial “reparations” from the government for the supposed injustice of being held accountable. In other words, they attack democracy, get pardoned, and then have the gall to sue the democracy they tried to burn down. Can you imagine the outrage if a Democratic president pardoned hundreds of left-wing rioters who had violently attacked police and tried to stop the certification of an election? The cries of “treason” would be deafening. But for Trump and his followers, violence is acceptable, even heroic, when it wears the red hat.

• Charlottesville (2017): Hundreds of white supremacists and neo-Nazis converged on Charlottesville to march with tiki torches and chant “Jews will not replace us!” They beat and terrorized counter-protesters, and one of them, a young neo-Nazi named James Fields, eventually rammed his car into a crowd of peaceful demonstrators, murdering 32-year-old Heather Heyer in an act of domestic terrorism. How did the right react? Did Republican leaders launch a sustained campaign against neo-Nazi violence? Hardly. Trump infamously responded that there were “very fine people on both sides,” sending a wink and nod to the alt-right. Conservative media spent more time whining about left-wing counter-protesters or the removal of Confederate statues than reckoning with the fact that actual Nazis had spilled blood on an American street. The President of the United States could not bring himself to unequivocally condemn a neo-Nazi murderer; instead he drew a false equivalence, as if anti-fascist protesters and torch-wielding fascists were the same. It was a disgraceful moment that emboldened the extremist right. They got the message: our violence will be minimised by those in power.

• The Tree of Life Synagogue Massacre (Pittsburgh, 2018): A far-right gunman, steeped in white supremacist and antisemitic conspiracy theories, stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue and murdered 11 Jewish worshippers during Shabbat services, the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history. The killer’s online posts raged that Jewish organisations were bringing “invaders” (immigrants and refugees) to destroy the white race. This paranoid lie, that a migrant “caravan” was really a Jewish plot, was not confined to fringe chat rooms; it had been mainstreamed by right-wing media and politicians. In fact, just before the massacre, right-wing outlets (and Trump himself) were feverishly ranting about a migrant caravan as an “invasion” funded by Jewish billionaire George Soros. The shooter merely took that narrative to its most hateful conclusion, blaming Jews for the immigrants he feared and deciding “All Jews must die”. After the atrocity, there were polite thoughts and prayers from the right, but no sustained soul-searching about how their “invasion” rhetoric might have fuelled genocidal antisemitism. Instead, some on the right actually tried to deflect blame or even bizarrely blame the victims. (One sick conspiracy theory insinuated that because the synagogue had participated in refugee resettlement programs, they had effectively invited the attack, an obscene case of victim-blaming.) The moment passed with no reckoning in MAGA-land. Fox News quickly moved on, Republican politicians didn’t dwell on it. No one in that ecosystem dared to ask: Are we contributing to this climate of hate? Because the honest answer would have been yes.

• El Paso Walmart Shooting (2019): A 21-year-old man drove across Texas to a Walmart in El Paso specifically to target Hispanic shoppers, and he murdered 23 people in cold blood. In his manifesto, he railed against a “Hispanic invasion” and cited the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory – the racist notion that elites (often coded as Jews) are deliberately replacing white Americans with immigrants. This poison was not just the delusion of a lone wolf; it had been injected into his veins by the wider right-wing echo chamber. Fox News personalities and Republican politicians had spent months (if not years) screaming about migrant “invasions” and “replacement.” Tucker Carlson, the top-rated Fox host at the time, had pushed “replacement” paranoia in over 400 of his shows, to the point that even conservative outlets admitted he had done more than anyone to popularize that white supremacist lie. The El Paso killer simply took that narrative to its logical, homicidal conclusion, he wrote that he was defending America from an immigrant invasion, then opened fire on families at a Walmart. Once again, the response from the right was to avert their eyes. GOP officials offered boilerplate condolences, then went back to demonizing immigrants and blocking even modest gun reforms. Fox News, confronted with the deadly fruits of the very theory they’d promoted, suddenly went quiet about “replacement” for a while, apparently aware enough to be embarrassed, but not enough to actually change course. And indeed, it wasn’t long before they were back to scaremongering about immigrants, as if El Paso never happened.

• Michigan Kidnapping Plot (2020): A band of armed militiamen, furious over COVID-19 public health measures and whipped up by online conspiracies, plotted to kidnap and possibly execute Michigan’s Democratic Governor, Gretchen Whitmer. They trained with firearms and explosives, conducted surveillance of her home, and planned to spark a civil war. These men were steeped in far-right anti-government ideology, and notably, they took inspiration from Donald Trump’s own rhetoric. Just weeks earlier, Trump had tweeted “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” in all caps, egging on protests against Whitmer’s COVID restrictions. The militiamen heard the message. The FBI thankfully infiltrated and foiled the plot, arresting 13 men and charging them with domestic terrorism offenses . But instead of universal horror, the incident became a partisan Rorschach test. Right-wing media floated theories that the plot was entrapment or a “false flag” by the FBI to make Trump supporters look bad. Trump himself never personally apologized to Whitmer or took responsibility for incendiary rhetoric. When asked about the plot, he shrugged it off and even attacked Whitmer further. The broader right-wing media ecosystem downplayed the whole thing. Here was a clear case of would-be terrorists, driven by extremist propaganda and presidential incitement, trying to overthrow a state government. In a healthier political climate, this would have prompted the party of those terrorists to do some soul-searching. Instead, the episode was swept under the rug, memory-holed, its implications denied. The temperature was not lowered, if anything, right-wing anger only grew in the following months as Trump amped up the stolen-election lies.

• The Mail Bomb Spree (2018): A fervent Trump supporter in Florida, Cesar Sayoc, mailed pipe bombs to more than a dozen targets that Trump had frequently demonized, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, CNN’s newsroom, George Soros, and other prominent Democrats and media figures. It was sheer luck that none of the bombs killed anyone (the devices were faulty). The perpetrator was a man so devoted to MAGA world that his van was literally plastered with Trump slogans and images, along with crosshairs over liberal figures’ faces and a sticker reading “CNN Sucks”. He had absorbed years of messages from the right telling him that these people were evil, enemies, traitors. And he decided to deliver “justice” in the form of mailed explosives. How did the right react? Trump gave a pro-forma condemnation of political violence (reading off a teleprompter) and then immediately went back to his rallies stoking rage at his usual targets. At one rally soon after the bombs were intercepted, Trump actually joked about Hillary Clinton’s emails even as the crowd chanted “Lock her up!”, as if to say, don’t let a little thing like attempted bombings stop the fun. Fox News quickly pivoted to other stories (caravan! Antifa! anything but MAGA terrorism). Some on the right even floated the idea that the bombings were a “hoax” or “false flag” by liberals to make Trump look bad. Again, the pattern: dismiss, deny, deflect. No introspection whatsoever. The president and his propagandists did not pause to consider if their “enemies of the people” rhetoric might be going too far, even as a fanatical follower tried to assassinate those “enemies.” Instead they carried on as before, if anything, Trump escalated his divisive incitement as the 2018 midterms approached. The lesson to his supporters was clear: keep up the fight (and if one of you gets a little overzealous and sends bombs, well, we’ll just not talk about that).

• Attacks on Public Officials (2022–2025): The list goes on. In 2022, a QAnon-believing intruder broke into Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home and bludgeoned her 82-year-old husband with a hammer, nearly killing him, while shouting “Where’s Nancy?!” (He intended to kidnap and torture the Speaker). The attacker, David DePape, was steeped in far-right conspiracy theories, he had posted online about alien plots, “communist” elites, election denial, and the insane QAnon fantasy that government is run by a cabal of pedophiles. This was precisely the kind of violence experts had feared as MAGA world increasingly painted Pelosi as a demon. And what did the right-wing media do? They disgracefully responded by circulating vile conspiracy theories to distract from DePape’s far-right associations. The worst corners of the internet (amplified by right-wing influencers and even Elon Musk) pushed a baseless narrative that Paul Pelosi’s attacker was actually a male prostitute or some bizarre lover’s quarrel, a claim with zero evidence, which Musk eagerly tweeted out to millions  before deleting it under pressure. Rather than face the reality of yet another MAGA-inspired attack, they literally invented alternate reality to muddy the waters. In 2023, an armed Trump fanatic in Utah, enraged by Trump’s legal troubles, threatened to assassinate President Biden and other officials. He was shot dead in an FBI raid before he could act (after pointing a gun at agents). The response from the right? Mostly silence or muttering about “overreach” by the FBI. And of course in 2025, as mentioned earlier, a MAGA-aligned gunman in Minnesota assassinated a female Democratic lawmaker and her husband in their home and shot another lawmaker, explicitly declaring he wanted to “eliminate traitors.” That barely registered on Fox News or in GOP talking points. No outrage, no segments about “right-wing terrorism,” no prime-time presidential addresses about the threat within. Instead, only when Charlie Kirk, a prominent right-wing figure, was killed did they crank up the outrage machine and paint an entire political half of the country as murderers, without a shred of evidence. The hypocrisy is blinding.

These examples barely scratch the surface of the wave of right-wing violence America has experienced. The Department of Homeland Security and FBI have repeatedly warned that violent white supremacists and anti-government extremists are the top domestic terror threat we face. Independent watchdogs and researchers echo that finding year after year. Yet one of our two major political parties refuses to face this reality. Worse, they often enable or excuse it.

How do they enable it? Through wink-nod justifications, through spreading dangerous lies, and through stochastic terrorism, a term we need to understand. Stochastic terrorism is when demagogues constantly demonize a target group or individual in the media, knowing that eventually some “lone wolf” will hear that as a call to arms and commit violence. The instigators don’t directly tell someone to commit a specific act, but they create the toxic climate that makes such acts more likely. This is exactly how today’s right-wing propaganda machine operates. When Trump calls journalists “enemies of the people,” or Musk amplifies posts portraying transgender people as child abusers, they are lighting fuses all around them and likely projecting themselves on to others. They know full well that some of those fuses will eventually reach a powder keg. And when the explosion happens, they wash their hands and say “Who could have predicted it? Probably the other side is to blame.” It’s a cynical shell game with deadly stakes. They incite rage and then exploit the chaos it causes, never accepting responsibility.

Fear, Lies, and the Radicalization Machine

Political violence doesn’t emerge from a vacuum. The modern American right has constructed a radicalization machine that churns out angry, misinformed, and often paranoid individuals, people primed to see violence as patriotic or necessary. At the heart of this machine is a feedback loop of fear-based propaganda in right-wing media and social media algorithms that amplify the most extreme voices.

Consider the role of right-wing media, especially Fox News. For years, Fox has fed its viewers a steady diet of rage and resentment. Every night, it’s apocalypse: immigrants are “invaders,” urban Democrats are coming for your suburb, secularists are outlawing your religion, “woke mobs” are destroying everything. Minorities are taking over, they say; crime is everywhere; the border is nonexistent; the country is being stolen. (Never mind that many of these talking points are distorted or outright false, what matters is stoking fear.) This drumbeat of anger and panic transforms political opponents into monstrous threats. Fox hosts and their guests casually compare liberals to Nazis, call Democrats “evil”, and spin wild conspiracy theories (everything from secret Muslim plots to the absurd QAnon fantasy about pedophile cabals). In that toxic narrative, compromise is betrayal. Your fellow Americans, Europeans who disagree with you aren’t just wrong, they’re out to destroy you. When you truly believe that, violence starts to seem not only acceptable, but even necessary.

We can see the toll this takes on ordinary people who fall down the rabbit hole. One former Fox News addict described the effect vividly, he said Fox turns people into “scared, angry babies” who live in constant fear and outrage. Indeed, many Fox devotees exist in an alternate reality where they’re perpetually on the brink of annihilation by socialist hordes or immigrant caravans or some other boogeyman. They have been infantilized and terrorized by propaganda. And frightened, furious people can be easily manipulated into lashing out. The irony is that this fear-mongering media empire, which claims to champion “tough, freedom-loving patriots,” has actually cultivated cowardice and paranoia. Its viewers are told to fear everything, to trust no one except the approved demagogues, and to see themselves as victims under siege. So when an event like Charlie Kirk’s death occurs, the narrative slots right in: See? We told you! The left really is out to kill us! To a Fox-addled mind, it feels true because it’s the natural climax of all the previous storytelling. They’ve been conditioned to expect a war, so they respond with outrage and calls for vengeance on cue.

Social media then pours rocket fuel on this fire. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter (now X), TikTok – these platforms use algorithms designed to maximize engagement, and nothing drives engagement like outrage and fear. If you click on a mildly conservative video on YouTube, before long the “Up Next” sidebar starts offering you more extreme content, maybe a clip ranting about impending civil war or a QAnon-flavoured conspiracy. Facebook groups that start around innocuous interests can quickly tunnel into extremist territory because the algorithm keeps suggesting more extreme groups to join. Someone starts in a “patriotic veterans” group; a month later they’re invited to a militia organizing page rife with talk of government overthrow. This is not an accident, it’s how the platforms were built. Internal studies at Facebook have shown that its algorithm, in seeking to increase user engagement, tends to feed users more divisive and negative content, in fact, posts that sparked “angry” reactions were often prioritised in newsfeeds, effectively rewarding outrage. The platform learned that leading users toward more polarizing and extreme content kept them hooked longer. And hooked users = higher profits. So the radicalization is, in a very real sense, profit-driven. The end result is countless ordinary people quietly led down rabbit holes toward extremism, courtesy of proprietary algorithms that nobody outside Big Tech fully understands.

Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter in late 2022 supercharged the online radicalization problem even further. Musk loves to portray himself as a “free speech absolutist,” but in practice he has turned Twitter into a playground for extremists and trolls. He welcomed back neo-Nazis, white supremacists and disinformation peddlers who had been banned for inciting hate or violence. Notorious racists and antisemites got their accounts restored with Musk’s personal blessing. Hate speech and harassment against marginalized groups have since exploded on the platform by quantifiable measures (researchers observed huge spikes in slurs and threats the week Musk took over). Musk himself often engages directly with far-right influencers, boosting their messages to his tens of millions of followers with replies of “👍” or “💯”. He has personally spread dangerous conspiracies, from anti-vaccine nonsense to bizarre lies about “white genocide” in South Africa, giving them legitimacy from his perch as the world’s richest man. And he routinely uses his own account to target individuals in demeaning, dehumanizing terms, unleashing swarms of his devotees on perceived enemies. Musk has made X (Twitter) a safe space for hate and a staging ground for violent rhetoric. Where previous management at least tried (imperfectly) to enforce rules against things like organized harassment or blatant bigotry, Musk has eviscerated those guardrails. The result is that neo-Nazis and violent militias feel empowered on the platform. They see the new owner as an ally (because, frankly, he is acting like one), so they escalate their presence and recruiting. When the owner of a major communication platform is effectively cheerleading the fringes, it’s not surprising that users get bolder about making direct threats or organizing real-world harassment. They feel invincible, protected by the new “free speech” sheriff in town.

We should be alarmed that opaque algorithms and billionaire whims now shape so much of our public discourse. No one elected Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk to be the arbiters of truth, but through their platforms they wield more power over information flow than any government censor ever could. A single tweak to Facebook’s feed algorithm can subtly influence the moods and beliefs of millions. Twitter’s secret ranking of content can make an extremist voice hugely influential or virtually invisible, at the flip of a switch, all depending on the biases of Musk and his team. When that owner (Musk) openly aligns with far-right movements and spreads their narratives, one has to wonder: is the algorithm now favoring incitement and hate? We don’t know for sure, because these systems are black boxes. And that is unacceptable in a democracy. No oligarch should have unchecked control over a platform that functions as a de facto public square. It’s simply too much power in one person’s hands, especially when that person has clear ideological axes to grind.

We, the public, have every right to demand oversight and accountability for social media algorithms. These algorithms determine what billions of people see and believe each day; leaving them governed solely by corporate profit motives (or the owner’s personal political agenda) is courting disaster. Imagine if during the rise of radio or television, one single tycoon could secretly decide which political messages get amplified and which get buried, all to benefit his friends or hobble his foes. That’s essentially what we have now in the digital realm. It’s time to treat these algorithmic systems less like sacrosanct private intellectual property and more like essential public infrastructure. At minimum, independent auditors should be able to inspect and report on how content is being promoted or suppressed. The goal isn’t to censor anyone’s views, it’s to shine light on the mechanisms that might be weaponising lies and anger for profit. Societies absolutely can set guardrails on technologies that impact public safety and national security. And make no mistake: allowing viral disinformation and violent propaganda to run rampant is a security threat, one that undermines democracy from within. Without transparency and accountability, “free speech” on these platforms becomes a smokescreen for algorithmic manipulation that corrodes free society. We should not accept that.

The Oligarchs and Strongmen Behind the Curtain

Political violence flourishes when powerful people provide cover, encouragement, or impunity for it. In today’s America, a clique of wealthy, influential men are doing exactly that, playing arsonist while posing as firefighter. They stoke resentment, bankroll extremists, or turn a blind eye when violence benefits their side. It’s crucial to name and confront these enablers.

Start at the top with Donald Trump. For all his bluster about “law and order” and his phony condemnations of “leftist violence,” Trump has for years openly egged on violence from his supporters. At his 2016 rallies, he mused nostalgically about wanting to “punch protesters in the face” and explicitly encouraged crowds to “knock the crap out of” hecklers, even suggesting he’d pay their legal bills if they did. As president, he told police officers not to be “too nice” when handling suspects (basically urging rough treatment). On social media, he twice shared a video of himself body-slamming a figure labeled “CNN”, treating violence against journalists as a joke. When far-right thugs violently attacked leftist counter-protesters in the streets of Portland and other cities, Trump praised those vigilantes, calling them “great patriots” and condemning left activists instead. After neo-Nazi James Fields murdered Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Trump infamously equivocated and drew equivalence rather than unequivocally denouncing the Nazis. He habitually celebrates violence against the press, at one rally he smiled and laughed when his audience cheered the memory of a Republican congressman physically assaulting a reporter. And of course, in the ultimate show of approval for political violence, Trump promised blanket pardons for those who commit violence in his name. The January 6 rioters, who beat cops and chanted about hanging the Vice President, have been portrayed by Trump as martyrs and heroes. He literally followed through and pardoned them by the hundreds once back in power. Let’s call this what it is: the leader of the Republican party has openly embraced political violence as a legitimate tool. He has told his followers that the law does not apply to them if they are doing it for him. This is how a cult of violence forms.

Trump’s return to power has only emboldened this violent mindset. In his current term, he has systematically torn down any barriers to his unchecked authority. Independent oversight is treated as treason. He has purged officials who stood up to his lies or thwarted his abuses (firing inspectors general, sidelining career experts). He muscled out nonpartisan professionals and installed sycophants who will do his bidding without question. He has even moved to put parts of the government directly under his personal control, floating ideas like bringing the FBI under the White House’s command. He pressured the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates to juice the economy ahead of elections, and when a Fed governor resisted, Trump tried to fire her (in an unprecedented assault on Fed independence). He ousted the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after a jobs report he didn’t like, ranting that the “job numbers were RIGGED” to make him look bad, and replaced that official with a partisan loyalist. He has brazenly said “I have the absolute right to do what I want with the Justice Department.” This is a man who does not believe in the rule of law, he believes in rule by his whim. For Trump, government is not a public trust; it’s a blunt instrument for punishing enemies and protecting himself. He has turned public office into a personal grift and shield. His businesses openly profited from his position (foreign dignitaries lined up to patronize his hotel to curry favor, for example). Shady deals and conflicts of interest abound. This blurring of public duty and private gain is textbook kleptocracy, the kind of self-dealing we associate with tin-pot dictatorships, not the United States. This mirrors Russia, and explains Trumps love for Putin in many ways.

Why bring up Trump’s corruption in a discussion about violence? Because corruption and violence often go hand in hand in the authoritarian playbook. When a leader has no regard for law or ethics in one arena (say, finances), it’s usually matched by a disregard for basic norms and human life in other arenas. Someone who believes the presidency entitles him to “do anything I want”, whether it’s strong-arming the Fed, firing independent officials for personal spite, or monetising national secrets, will also believe he can use the machinery of state power to crush opponents by any means necessary. Under Trump, the line between political power and brute force is fading fast. His movement increasingly treats opponents not as fellow citizens, but as vermin or traitors to be jailed or worse. And he encourages that view through both rhetoric and wink-nod signals. He talks about “vermin” infestations (recently referring to undocumented immigrants as an infestation to be “removed”), evokes battle imagery in campaign speeches (his 2024 rhetoric is full of talk of “final battles” and retribution). He laughs when supporters fantasize about harming political enemies. The violent undertones are loud and clear.

Trump isn’t acting alone. Surrounding him is a retinue of ideologues and oligarchs who help shape and spread this authoritarian project. There’s Steve Bannon, the self-described “Leninist” who openly said “Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too” . Bannon has long glorified conflict and upheaval, he talks about citizens taking up “pitchforks and torches,” and he literally runs a podcast called “War Room” where he urges MAGA followers to “attack” and “confront” their perceived enemies. He was deeply involved in drumming up fury over false election-fraud claims, helping to spur the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol (Bannon actually predicted on Jan. 5, 2021, that “all hell is going to break loose tomorrow”). Even after being indicted (and later pardoned) for defrauding donors in a fake border wall scheme, Bannon continues to preach insurrection and civil war to millions of listeners. He’s not fringe, he was Trump’s chief strategist and remains an architect of MAGA strategy, revelling in chaos as a means to power. Bannon operates with the philosophy that if you tear it all down (the media, the courts, the system), you can rebuild an illiberal order in the rubble. He wants a nation inflamed and at war with itself, believing that from that, his side can seize total control.

There’s Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech investor who has poured money into far-right candidates and causes. Thiel once wrote (in 2009) that “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible”, a stark admission of elitist contempt for popular governance. He has floated the idea that extending voting rights to women and the welfare state made “capitalist democracy” impossible, and pined for a return to pure freedom (for the wealthy few) without the masses getting a vote. Thiel has actively financed a network of intellectuals and politicians who openly question whether universal voting rights and equality are good ideas. He backed protégés like J.D. Vance and Blake Masters, who spout nationalist, reactionary rhetoric, and he’s mused about the benefits of authoritarianism (so long as it’s aligned with his values, of course). Thiel’s agenda, dressed up as high-minded “libertarianism,” is essentially to roll back liberal democracy and replace it with governance by a wealthy technocratic elite, and he’s willing to bankroll culture wars and even hints of violence to get there. This is a man who was an early funder of Facebook and Palantir and has enormous influence in Silicon Valley and beyond. When someone with that much money and power declares he’s “taking a break from democracy” (as Thiel did when he moved operations to avoid U.S. regulation), we should take him at his word, and be very concerned.

And of course, there’s Elon Musk, the world’s richest edgelord, who increasingly behaves like an aspiring tyrant’s propaganda minister. Musk’s transformation from a somewhat apolitical tech icon to a full-throated far-right megaphone has been astonishing. He now routinely fraternizes online with notorious hatemongers and fringe personalities. He’ll reply “💯” or “exactly” to posts by white nationalist sympathizers, giving a billionaire’s stamp of approval to their hate. He echoes and amplifies extremist talking points, in recent years he’s tweeted (or retweeted) racist Great Replacement musings, anti-vaccine misinformation, climate change denial, and attacks on any group the far right despises (trans people, public health officials, “globalists,” you name it). He uses his platform to target individual critics with ridicule or insults, unleashing his hordes of followers to dogpile them. And now, as we saw in London, he’s literally joining far-right rallies and feeding their audiences a steady diet of incendiary rhetoric. Via video link at an extremist protest in the UK (organized by infamous agitator Tommy Robinson), Musk told a cheering crowd that “violence is coming” and urged them to “fight back or die”. He derided Britain’s elected government and essentially encouraged insurrection, calling for “a revolutionary change” and even a dissolution of Parliament because he didn’t like the current leadership . Think about that: an American tech billionaire publicly advocating for the overthrow of another country’s government at a rally of its far-right faction. In the same breath, Musk ranted that “the left are the party of murder” and that UK authorities were covering up mass crimes, painting Britain’s liberals and moderates as literally complicit in murder. This is beyond normal political commentary; it’s incitement on an international scale. It shows that the MAGA-extremist narrative is not content to stay within U.S. borders, its promoters will export it to any democracy they find ideologically troublesome.

This global spread of far-right authoritarianism, abetted by billionaires and online networks, should alarm everyone who values democracy. We see figures like Musk and Bannon forging links with European extremists (Bannon in past years palling around with Europe’s ethno-nationalist parties, Musk cozying up to UK and German far-right elements). We see Russian disinformation operations amplifying Western far-right narratives, fanning flames of division (it’s well documented that Kremlin-linked trolls promoted content from both far-right and far-left extremes in the U.S., but heavily favored anything that would help Trump or sow chaos). The ecosystem of authoritarian propaganda is transnational. If one democracy stands strong, they’ll try to undermine another, hoping for domino effects. Their dream is a world where liberal democracy is discredited and “strongmen” or demagogic movements hold sway from Washington to London to Brasília to Budapest.

It’s important to emphasize: this is not normal conservatism or a typical left-right policy debate at all. We are dealing with something far more radical, a project to tear down the guardrails of democracy entirely and entrench a new form of autocratic rule. Trumpism (bolstered by the Musks and Thiels and Murdochs of the world) has very little in common with, say, the conservative philosophy of Ronald Reagan or Dwight Eisenhower. Those leaders, whatever your disagreements with their policies, operated within democratic norms and accepted the basic legitimacy of opposition. Today’s far-right operates in a post-truth, win-at-all-costs mode. They encourage their base to view politics as literal war. In their view, losing an election is unacceptable, sharing power is betrayal, and compromise is weakness. That’s why violence becomes thinkable, if the other side are essentially monsters or traitors destroying the country, why wouldn’t you feel entitled to punch them, shoot them, or worse? Trump is not a “Republican” in any traditional sense, he has no coherent principles of limited government or respect for institutions. He is an authoritarian cult leader who just hijacked the GOP as his vehicle. He and his oligarch boosters cannot defend American ideals because, at root, they don’t truly believe in them. They mouth words like “freedom” and “patriotism,” but in their lexicon those just mean loyalty to the leader and the freedom of their tribe to dominate. They see the state as something to be captured and exploited, not a trust to uphold for all citizens. They see laws and truth as inconvenient hurdles to be bent or bulldozed. They will sacrifice any foundational norm, from fair elections to peaceful transfers of power, if it stands in the way of their dominance. They divide and extract; they do not unite or build.

So where does that leave the rest of us? Watching all this, it’s easy to feel despair. But we are not helpless. History shows that democracies can fight back and survive even the gravest internal threats, if enough citizens and institutions stand firm and act decisively.

Let’s look abroad for some instructive examples, because the United States isn’t the only democracy that has confronted an authoritarian surge. Others have faced similar crises and found ways to counter the threat. Their experiences offer both inspiration and a yardstick by which to measure our own response.

When Democracies Defend Themselves

Consider Brazil, a country that, like the U.S., faced an attempted overturning of an election by a defeated far-right president. On 8 January 2023, Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace, baying for a military coup. The response was immediate and uncompromising: mass arrests, forensic investigations, and prosecutions up the chain.

And the line held. Brazil didn’t just wring its hands and move on. It tried the case, named the plot for what it was, a bid to abolish democracy, and jailed Jair Bolsonaro for 27 years. Read that again. The ex-president who seeded the lies and lit the fuse is not swanning around cable studios playing victim. He is a convicted coup-plotter, barred from office and facing decades behind bars. His lieutenants, military and civilian, were hauled in too. Institutions did their job. The message was unmistakable: no one, not even a former president, is above the law.

That’s what democratic self-defence looks like. Swift arrests. Independent courts. Real consequences. No both-sides babble. No bending the knee to a violent cult of personality. Brazil drew the line. America should have drawn it already.

Look at Germany, a nation with a long post-war commitment to stamping out the far right. When neo-Nazi or extremist networks plot violence there, German authorities don’t hesitate to round them up and ban their organizations. In late 2022, German police busted a plot by a group of far-right Reichsbürger (so-called “Reich Citizens,” basically sovereign-citizen monarchists) who planned to attack the national parliament and possibly kidnap officials. In one massive sweep, about 3,000 officers carried out raids at 130 sites across the country and 25 people were arrested for participating in the terrorist plot. Those conspirators have been charged with offences including high treason for planning to overthrow the government. Germany has also outright outlawed openly neo-Nazi parties and symbols; they remember all too well what happens if you let that cancer spread. Their domestic intelligence agencies actively monitor far-right extremist groups, treating them as a serious internal threat rather than pretending they don’t exist or making excuses for them. While the U.S. has the First Amendment and a unique historical context, the German example underscores a principle: a democracy must defend itself from those who would destroy it. That means using the law to shut down violent paramilitaries and hold extremist leaders accountable, even if those extremists try to cloak themselves in political legitimacy. Germany’s Interior Minister said it well after that big raid: “The raids show that we know how to defend ourselves with full force against the enemies of democracy.” We need that same spirit.

Another example: New Zealand. In 2019, a white supremacist terrorist attacked two mosques in Christchurch, slaughtering 51 innocent Muslims during Friday prayers. It was a heinous act clearly motivated by a global far-right ideology (the shooter’s manifesto was rife with “Great Replacement” talk and he had links to white nationalist forums). New Zealand’s response was unity and decisive action. The Prime Minister at the time, Jacinda Ardern, showed extraordinary leadership, she mourned with the Muslim community, wore a hijab in solidarity, and made it a point to say “They are us” about New Zealand’s Muslims, explicitly rejecting the terrorist’s attempt to divide. She also forcefully denounced the hate ideology that motivated the killer, with none of the mealy-mouthed hedging we see in U.S. responses. And Ardern’s government moved swiftly to change gun laws: within weeks they drafted and passed legislation banning the types of semi-automatic assault weapons used in the massacre. The ban passed by a vote of 119 to 1 in their parliament, near unanimity, because across the spectrum they recognized this must never happen again. They also launched a national gun buyback program to get those weapons out of circulation. This was all accomplished in a matter of months. There was no endless “thoughts and prayers” limbo while nothing changed (as so often happens in the U.S. after mass shootings). Just as importantly, New Zealand’s public overwhelmingly rallied together. Non-Muslim Kiwis protected mosques, attended interfaith vigils, and basically told the world: we reject hate; we are in this together. When the shooter hoped to terrorize and divide, New Zealanders responded by uniting and addressing the source of the violence.

Compare that to the American dynamic. Here, every tragedy (whether it’s a church shooting, synagogue shooting, or a politician attacked) immediately gets refracted through the culture war prism. Instead of everyone agreeing “This is awful, let’s stand together against hate,” we descend into finger-pointing and whataboutism. We can’t even agree that neo-Nazis or racially motivated killers are uniquely bad problems on one side of the spectrum. Our political polarization is so extreme that even saying “white supremacist terrorism is a major threat” turns into a partisan debate. It’s embarrassing how far behind America is. We have much to learn from places like New Zealand about building a united front against hate-driven violence.

Even in the United Kingdom, a country with its own extremist elements and polarised politics, there have been moments of clarity we can draw on. In 2016, a pro-European British MP, Jo Cox, was assassinated by a neo-Nazi who shouted “Britain first!” as he shot and stabbed her. British politicians across all parties condemned it unreservedly; there was a moment of national reflection on the dangers of extremist rhetoric (though, alarmingly, the UK saw another MP murdered in 2021 by an Islamist extremist, showing that vigilance must never relax, and politicians on all sides remain targets of radicalised individuals). The UK has also taken steps to curb the influence of American-style disinformation media. Fox News attempted to enter the UK market but failed, not because the government banned it outright, but because the UK’s broadcast regulator Ofcom enforced factual impartiality standards that Fox simply could not meet. Fox News was found in breach of basic broadcasting code for spreading one-sided propaganda and was effectively pulled off the air in Britain, they did the same for various Chinese entities. Imagine that, in the UK, major TV channels actually have to present news with some semblance of balance and truth, and a network that traffics in nightly lies couldn’t cut it. So British viewers are not marinating in the same daily toxic stew that Fox feeds Americans. That’s a small example, but it shows a different mindset: many democracies don’t give free rein to mass propaganda that deliberately undermines democratic values. In the U.S., under the absolutist banner of “free speech” (often cynically invoked by those who want to spread lies without consequences), we have allowed our public square to be flooded with dangerous falsehoods and demonization. The result is a population that can’t even agree on basic reality anymore, and a faction that is ready to pick up arms based on fantasy. Free speech is a fundamental value, yes, but a healthy society does not have to passively permit a firehose of disinformation that pushes people into violence. Other democracies draw that line. We need to reckon with where our own line should be.

The takeaway is stark: democracies can protect themselves, but only when they act like they mean it. America hasn’t. Yes, prosecutors won convictions for Jan 6, and then Trump pardoned them en masse in 2025, including convicted seditionists and even child rapists. Many of those he set free are now suing the very democracy they tried to burn down, recasting themselves as victims to cash in. We still haven’t banned or dismantled violent extremist networks the way other democracies do; instead, some Republican lawmakers pose with Proud Boys and Oath Keepers like they’re local Rotary. Congress couldn’t pass a basic domestic terrorism bill. The Senate wouldn’t convict Trump for inciting an insurrection, not for lack of evidence but for lack of courage. The message to would-be strongmen and their foot soldiers has been deafening: wrap your violence in a flag and you’ll get impunity, maybe even a payout.

That must change, or our democracy will continue to decay. We need the kind of moral clarity and backbone that other countries have mustered at their critical hours. We too should be drawing lines and saying “No more.” No more treating armed, bigoted militias as just another constituency to court. No more tolerating public officials who wink at or joke about political violence. No more giving prominent media platforms to people who spread seditious lies and demonize their fellow Americans, Europeans or otherwise. Defending an open society does not mean we have to be naive or helpless in the face of those who would destroy it. We can be tolerant of diversity in views, while being intolerant of intolerance and violent sedition. The survival of the republic and democracy around the world depends on it.

So what is to be done? How do we stop this slide toward political violence and creeping fascism? There is no single magic fix; it will require action on multiple fronts, from the halls of power to our own neighbourhoods and online communities. But we can outline a roadmap. Here are some key steps:

1. Accountability for the Powerful: No more free passes for those who incite or sanction violence. This means individuals at the top must face consequences when they cross the line. If politicians or media figures stoke violent hatred, they should be exposed, condemned, and where possible, legally penalized. This means Donald Trump and any elected officials involved in plots to overturn the election must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. The Justice Department needs to do its job without fear or favour, the evidence is ample that crimes were committed (seditious conspiracy, obstruction, etc.), and letting it slide would set a terrible precedent. Charge them, put them on trial, let a jury hear the facts. Equal justice demands it. It also means that propagandists who deliberately spread lies that lead to violence should be held accountable in court or driven off the air. We saw a hint of this when Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News for defamation and won a historic $787.5 million settlement, Fox had to admit, at least implicitly, that it told lies about Dominion that harmed our democracy. That kind of litigation shines a light on the truth and hits the liars where it hurts, their wallets. More such lawsuits (and advertiser boycotts, and pressure campaigns) can make the cost of purveying deadly disinformation higher. And social media companies must start enforcing their own terms of service consistently, meaning ban or suspend even the most prominent users if they are inciting hate or violence. Yes, I’m looking at you, Mr. Musk, a real free-speech absolutist would recognise that speech that directly encourages violent acts (or spreads dangerous hoaxes that predictably lead to violence) is not protected. Nobody’s “free speech” includes the right to shout fire in a crowded theater when there is no fire. Well, our national theater is full of people trying to do just that, figuratively set fire through lies, and it’s bone-dry with kindling. We simply cannot afford timidity toward those who weaponize communication systems to incite violence. It’s time to say enough: If you use mass media to propagate the big lie or stochastic terror, you will face lawsuits, you will be de-platformed, you will be socially shunned, you will pay a price.

2. A Reality Check in Media Narratives: We must demand more honesty from the press about where the danger is coming from. The mainstream media’s fetish for “both sides” symmetry has become dangerously misleading in this context. Journalists and commentators need to grow a spine and say clearly what the data shows: that right-wing extremist violence is the clear and present threat to America, Europe, democracy and decency right now. Every time a politician or pundit tries to deflect by saying “but what about left-wing violence,” they should be confronted with the overwhelming evidence of the imbalance. The job of the media is to inform the public of reality, not to play referee in a false game of equivalence. If a doctor knows a patient has cancer but keeps talking about a minor infection instead, the patient dies. Our democracy has a cancer, violent authoritarian extremism on the right. Talk about that, relentlessly, until action is taken. Don’t allow the conversation to be hijacked by bad-faith actors who point to a random window broken at a protest and say “See, both sides do it.” We have to stop letting lies go unchallenged in the name of civility or balance. Calling out the extremist threat isn’t “divisive”, pretending it doesn’t exist is. By correctly diagnosing the problem, we can build public support to address it. By contrast, tiptoeing around it just leaves the public confused and apathetic. Media outlets should also devote serious investigative resources to exposing extremist networks and disinformation pipelines. Shine sunlight on the funding, the coordination, the influence campaigns (for instance, what roles have foreign actors or dark money played in boosting our far-right?). If Fox News won’t do it, others must. And when Fox personalities spew dangerous lies, other media should not be afraid to say, in plain language, “This is false, this is propaganda, and here’s why it’s harmful.” Enough polite euphemisms, call lies lies, call incitement incitement. Democracy can’t survive if the truth is forever playing second fiddle to false balance.

3. Defend and Reform Democratic Institutions: Our institutions, from law enforcement to the courts to legislatures, need bolstering to better combat domestic extremism, and they need reform to remove the vulnerabilities extremists exploit. On the security side, federal agencies should be empowered (with appropriate civil liberties safeguards) to monitor and infiltrate violent extremist groups. If we could effectively track ISIS cells, we can do the same with neo-Nazi or militia cells. Yes, this is delicate given First Amendment rights, but law enforcement can draw distinctions between protected speech and actionable conspiracy. It’s not about policing opinions; it’s about catching plots before they become bloodshed. If anything, agencies like the FBI need more resources and clear mandates to tackle domestic terrorism (the GAO and others have noted that federal efforts have been skewed toward Islamist terrorism even as the lethal threat shifted to the far right). Perhaps we need a domestic terrorism statute to make prosecution easier, currently, many domestic terrorists are charged under generic statutes (weapons charges, etc.) because there isn’t a domestic equivalent of “material support” laws that were used against jihadists. Creating that, carefully tailored, could help. At the same time, Congress should investigate the radicalisation pipeline, drag Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and x executives in and force them to explain their algorithms and what they know about their role in spreading extremism. Consider legislation that demands transparency from these platforms (imagine a law that requires social media companies to let independent researchers audit the most-shared content and see how lies go viral). That’s a start.

Importantly, we also have to shore up the integrity of institutions themselves. One reason extremists have traction is public mistrust in institutions. Some of that mistrust is deliberately sown by bad actors, but some comes from institutions failing to deliver. So, we have to make government work better for people. That means everything from ensuring economic opportunities to delivering fair justice. Part of what fuels extremism is the cynical belief that “the system is broken and doesn’t care about you, so why not tear it all down?” We combat that by actually addressing people’s real problems so they don’t feel so desperate or alienated. It’s a long game, but over time, good governance is a vaccine against authoritarianism. If communities feel heard, safe, and served by their government, they’ll be less susceptible to demagogues telling them to blame some enemy and burn it all down. So yes, pass that infrastructure bill, improve those schools, fix policing, tackle corruption, it all connects. Show that democracy delivers, and the allure of the strongman diminishes.

4. Build Community Resilience and Education: Top-down fixes won’t be enough; we need bottom-up efforts to inoculate people against extremist recruiting. Education is key. We need to be teaching media literacy and critical thinking in schools, arm young people with the tools to recognise bullshit conspiracy theories and manipulative rhetoric before they fall prey to it. Why not include curriculum on how propaganda works, using historical and current examples? Make it mainstream to know about things like confirmation bias, deepfakes, and troll farms. Likewise, invest in programs that intervene with at-risk individuals. There are groups and experts who specialise in de-radicalisation, including former extremists who now try to pull people out of hate movements. They’ve had success by reaching out on a personal level, offering pathways out of the echo chamber. Government and civil society should fund and amplify these efforts. For example, if a disillusioned young man is spiraling into neo-Nazi forums, there should be resources (maybe even a hotline or community center) where family members can seek help to snap him out of it. Former extremists often say what drew them in was a sense of belonging or purpose that they lacked elsewhere, so let’s create alternate avenues for belonging and purpose. Support groups for veterans (so militias don’t become the default fraternity), youth programs that give meaning and identity that isn’t about hate. Even simple community-building, encouraging interactions across political and cultural lines, can slowly chip away at the otherization that makes violence possible. And families: pay attention. If your uncle, your daughter, your friend is spewing sudden extremist rhetoric, don’t just roll your eyes and ignore it. Engage them (if it’s safe to), ask questions, share factual information, express concern. It might not work immediately, but planting seeds of doubt in a radicalized mind can, over time, help break the spell. The point is, fighting extremism is everyone’s responsibility, not just the government’s. We all have to be part of making our communities resilient to toxic hate.

5. Unity in Defence of Democracy: Finally, and most crucially, the majority of Americans who do not want political violence need to stand together, across our usual partisan or identity lines, to protect our democratic values. This is about pro-democracy vs. anti-democracy, decency vs. depravity, not left vs. right in the normal sense. Liberals, moderates, principled conservatives, independents, people of every race and creed, we must find common cause against the extremist minority that would plunge us into chaos. We can disagree on tax policy or healthcare or immigration and debate those in good faith, but we should all agree that nobody gets to impose their will by force or terror. That’s non-negotiable.

We must socially isolate and stigmatize the advocates of violence. If a coworker jokes about shooting politicians, call it out, “That’s not okay.” If a family member shares a meme fantasizing about running over protesters, don’t laugh uncomfortably and move on, say clearly it’s wrong. Let it be known in our circles that we do not tolerate violent ideation. Silence, in these cases, can be taken as acceptance. Peer pressure can work both ways, right now, in some communities, expressing extremist views gets you nods or likes. We need to flip that script so that it gets you pushed to the fringe where you belong. It’s like herd immunity: if enough of us reject extremist rhetoric, the social contagion can’t spread as easily.

Part of this unity means voting, every time, at every level, for candidates who uphold democracy and the rule of law, regardless of party. We have to be willing to put country over party when it comes to positions like secretaries of state, attorneys general, governors, congresspeople. A Republican who is courageous enough to tell the truth and reject election lies is far preferable to a Democrat who might align with you on policy but winks at extremism, and vice versa. Luckily, most democratic (small-d) candidates do tend to come from one party these days (since the GOP has been hijacked), but we should be open to strange bedfellows. If a Liz Cheney or an Adam Kinzinger, staunch conservatives who stood against Trump’s coup attempt, form an alliance or run for something, pro-democracy voters of all stripes should consider supporting them. The coalition to defend democracy must be broad. The good news is it really is: polls show a large majority of Americans do disapprove of political violence and value the Constitution. We have to translate that into a more tangible coalition that stands up loudly for those principles.

Above all, we have to hold on to the basic truth that we are all Americans, Europeans, democracies, and we rise or fall together. The extremists want us to hate each other and fear each other, to see fellow citizens as enemies. We have to resist that with everything we’ve got. Because the reality is, most Americans, Europeans etc. left, right, or center, want the same fundamental things: safety, freedom, a fair shot at a decent life, and a say in how we’re governed. We differ on how to achieve those sometimes, but we share those core desires. We can have passionate debates and still recognize each other’s humanity. We must, if we’re to keep this republic and democracy. Political violence is a road to ruin for everyone.

If I were an enemy of America, wanting to see this great experiment fail, I could not devise a better strategy than what the far right is currently doing to us from within, with russia’s full support. If I wanted to destroy a democracy, I would pump out constant outrage and fear until people couldn’t think straight. I would spread dehumanizing propaganda to make neighbors hate neighbors. I would replace facts with “alternative facts” so that reality itself splinters. I would encourage a cult-like loyalty to a leader such that his word matters more than any objective truth. I would pardon the foot soldiers who commit violence in that leader’s name, so that loyalty feels above the law. I would accuse the other side of every evil I myself commit (projection to confuse the issue). I would attack every independent referee, judges, journalists, career civil servants, so eventually the public trusts no one but the Dear Leader. I would let a small gang of the leader’s cronies loot the state, to entrench their power and make governance synonymous with corruption. I would turn the legislature into a stage for performative grievance while real power is exercised unchecked by the executive. I would inflame racial and cultural tensions endlessly, to keep the populace from uniting against their true oppressors.

Does any of this sound familiar? It should, because we can see the end of that road from here. We are perilously far down it already. The terrifying part is how many of those boxes have been checked in the past few years by the American far right. But the hopeful part is this: we have not passed the point of no return. It is not too late to change course.

We can still choose a different future. We can choose to tell the truth and call things by their real names: to say No, it wasn’t a mere “riot” on January 6, it was an attempted coup and an act of domestic terrorism. To say No, it’s not “biased” to point out that nearly all recent political terror is from the right, it’s the truth. We can choose to demand consequences for even the most powerful when they break the law or trample norms, whether in the courtroom or the court of public opinion, insist that nobody is above the rules. We can choose to strengthen the guardrails of democracy, protecting voting rights, ensuring election results can’t be subverted, shoring up checks and balances, even if it means our preferred party might not always win. We can choose to see through the propaganda and refuse to let our grief or anger be weaponized into hate. After Charlie Kirk’s death, many felt sorrow, many felt anger, those are human emotions. But we are not beasts; we can channel those feelings into constructive action (like improving security, addressing extremism) rather than blind vengeance. Every time we refuse to let hate breed more hate, we break the cycle a little.

That is how democracies survive. They survive when enough people have the courage to stand up in the middle of the firestorm and say: We will not become what we deplore. We will not turn on our neighbors because some demagogue on TV or the internet told us to. We will not abandon truth and decency, no matter how loud the liars get. We will defend our system of self-government, the rule of law, the rights of minorities, the ideal of peaceful transfers of power, because we know the alternatives are infinitely worse.

America is at a crossroads. Down one path is a future where every political disagreement might bring bloodshed, where democracy is a hollow shell and might makes right. Down the other path is a hard journey to restore trust, accountability, and unity, but at least it’s a journey toward national healing and strength. The choice cannot be avoided or deferred; we are making it now, day by day, with our words and actions.

Let’s choose wisely. Let’s choose democracy and human dignity over the cheap allure of authoritarian hate. Let’s show the world, and more importantly, show ourselves, that we can step back from the abyss. We can look into the darkness and say, Not today. We will not go quietly into that dark night of division and tyranny. We will stand together, speak the truth, and defend the best ideals of America, freedom, equality and democracy.

Our ancestors fought and died to build and preserve this democratic republic. Now it’s our turn to step up, not with violence or vengeance, but with firmness, honesty, and solidarity. We owe it to those who came before, and to all who will come after, to beat back this tide of violent extremism and prove that the American and democratic experiment can not only endure but thrive.

Reject the party of murder and mayhem, no matter what mask it wears or what name it cloaks itself in. Embrace the party of all of us, the party of living together in decency and peace as one people, governed by laws and not lies. That is how democracies survive. That is how we heal.

America, choose the better path – while you still can.

Love from Europe - I wrote this from an American perspective, even though I am European, because we were always not just allies, but friends and one, for freedom, equality, democracy and prosperity.