Thursday, February 19FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA, PALESTINE WILL BE FREE
April 2025 Study Revealed Pervasive “Assassination Culture”
April 2025 Study Revealed Pervasive “Assassination Culture” on the American Left: Study Shows Majority of Left-Leaning Respondents Justified Killing President Trump and Destroying Tesla Dealerships
It would be quite interesting to see revised opinions shared with the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) earlier this year, when left-leaning respondents, when asked if it would be somewhat justified to murder President Trump or Elon Musk, justified the killing of Trump at 55% and Musk at 48%.
A disturbing new report reveals that violent political rhetoric online, including calls for the murder of public figures like President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, is being increasingly normalized, particularly on the left.
The report, from Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), found that a growing number of people are willing to justify and even applaud killing in the name of politics and a warped sense of social justice. The chilling change appears to have accelerated in recent months.
“What was formerly taboo culturally has become acceptable,” Joel Finkelstein, the lead author of the report, 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 traces the cultural shift back to the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson by Luigi Mangione in December 2024. What followed, researchers say, was a viral wave of memes that turned Mangione into a folk hero.
According to the study, these memes have sparked copycat behavior targeting other figures associated with wealth and conservative politics.
“It’s not just Luigi anymore,” Finkelstein said. “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.”
A ballot measure in California, darkly named the Luigi Mangione Access to Health Care Act, is just one real-world outgrowth of this online movement.
NCRI conducted a non-probability based 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%.
“These are not isolated opinions,” the report states. “They are part of a tightly connected belief system linked to what we call left-wing authoritarianism.”
“Trump represents the perfect target for assassination culture. He’s powerful, he’s rich and he’s provocative,” said Finkelstein to Fox News Digital. “That puts him on the highest shelf for those who glorify political violence.”
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,” said Finkelstein. “This points to a coherent belief system, not just isolated grievances.”
Tesla has become a stand-in for broader frustrations about capitalism, tech power and conservative politics. Burning down a dealership isn’t just a protest, it’s a performance, a signal of belonging to a radical in-group.”
Finkelstein said that while some level of violent sentiment exists on the right, “What we found was a statistically higher endorsement of political murder on the left, 41% more than among right-leaning participants.”
The report singles out BlueSky, a social media platform favored by progressive users, as a major amplifier of extremist ideation.
“BlueSky was modeled as a safe alternative to Twitter for the left, but what it’s become is an extremist platform,” Finkelstein said. “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.”
According to NCRI’s open-source analysis, BlueSky saw a spike in engagement on posts referencing Mangione, Trump and Musk, crossing over 200,000 posts and 2 million engagements in just months. Reddit currently hosts pro-Mangione communities with tens of thousands of members.
Finkelstein believes the psychological roots of “assassination culture” are a mix of ideological radicalism and feelings of powerlessness, particularly in the aftermath of electoral losses.
“When people feel like they have no say, no future and no leadership offering vision, they become susceptible to radical ideation,” he said. “And that’s when the memes turn into permission structures for real violence.”
A key predictor identified in the study is external locus of control, which is the belief that one’s life is governed by outside forces.
“Combine that with extreme partisanship, and you get an explosive mix,” Finkelstein said.
Finkelstein does not believe censorship will end “assassination culture,” but strong leadership just might.
“We are not an anti-free speech organization,” said Finkelstein. “But we know what a threat is. And what’s happening online on platforms like BlueSky represents a significant threat to American democratic values. If leaders on the left explicitly condemn these trends and reassert moral norms, they can dismantle this culture quickly,” he said. “It’s about reminding people there is a future worth striving for that doesn’t involve glorifying political violence.”
The NCRI report ends on a sobering note: The normalization of assassination ideation is already spilling into real-world violence. Whether it’s attacks on Tesla dealerships or assassination attempts on public officials, the NCRI warns that political violence is no longer fringe but culturally fashionable in some corners of the internet.
“With economic instability and ideological echo chambers feeding radicalism, the threat environment is shifting beneath our feet,” Finkelstein said. “But recognizing that – hearing the sirens – is the first step to stopping it.”
The Network Contagion Research Institute describes itself as a “neutral and independent organization whose mission is to identify and forecast cyber-social threats and report on them in a timely fashion.”
Fifty-Eight percent of left of center respondents said it was justified to destroy Tesla dealership in April of 2025, and I’d be willing to beat this number hovers to closer to 80-85% today, judging by the bloodlust publicly displayed on social media (even video uploads) by so many teachers, healthcare professionals, military personnel, white collar, and service professionals at the news of Kirk’s assassination.
The hour is late. The Left wants blood. It’s an unsettling thought, but a poll in April of 2025 made this clear. The not-so-isolated reactions by tens of thousands of people who posted positive reactions to Charlie Kirk’s murder on social media platforms using their own names, with their bios clearly visible, made this clear the poll is outdated and doesn’t accurately represent the Left’s bloodlust for silencing those they’ve deemed fascist or Nazis. Because to them, “hate speech” is speech they hate, and a bullet settles the debate.
