In the last few months, the Department of Justice (DOJ) charged protesters in Minnesota with engaging in a criminal conspiracy, secured sentences of a combined 450 years in prison against protesters in Texas, reindicted former FBI Director James Comey over an Instagram post, and opened investigations into nonprofits it claims fund political violence. While each case is framed as a response to the threat of political violence, some seem to have little to do with it at all.
These cases share a pattern: the Trump administration is using allegations of political violence as cover to violate individual rights, chill dissent, and intimidate civil society. Direct connections to actual acts of political violence seem to be, at best, a secondary concern. Taken together, this is a classic authoritarian playbook tactic — a blatant attempt to tilt the playing field in their favor ahead of the midterms, borrowed from the same script used to label nonprofits as foreign threats abroad.
The strategy could work because Americans are genuinely worried. Political violence has been on the rise for a decade, and now includes violence that comes from the government itself. Americans know that things are trending in the wrong direction, but polling shows they lack the full picture and they don’t agree on where the threat is coming from. That gap between fear and understanding is exactly what the federal government is exploiting.
Read more — Media Guides: Covering political violence
The data doesn’t match the narrative
The Trump administration has baselessly claimed the country faces “an organized campaign of radical left terrorism” that has broad support. That characterization may fit their narrative, but it doesn’t fit the data.
Experts broadly agree that threats and violence have increased in recent years. While high-profile attacks have come from both the left and right, most documented episodes over the last decade have come from individuals seemingly identifying with the political right. The number seen as coming from the left has begun to rise only recently, from a prior baseline of almost zero. And in fact, ideology itself is a poor lens for this problem altogether: Many perpetrators of political violence hold mixed or incoherent worldviews that don’t really map onto our conventional notions of left and right at all. The administration’s claims of organized, ideological violence campaigns just don’t reflect the realities of a serious and complex problem.
What is clear is that Americans across the ideological spectrum reject political violence. Just 16% of Americans think violence for political ends is ever acceptable, and only 2% are confident that they themselves would personally consider participating. These numbers are consistently low across the partisan spectrum — the differences between self-identified Republicans or Democrats are minor because support is so low across the board.
Covering political violence requires principle and clarity
Careful journalism is how most Americans make sense of the gap between perception and reality — but even good faith reporting can unintentionally stoke fear, push targeted communities from public life, or feed authoritarian narratives. This is why Protect Democracy and Over Zero have developed a series of resources to help newsrooms cover instances of political violence responsibly. How do we know if our news sources are living up to best practices? Three questions are worth asking of any story:
Is the reporting concrete, or does it sensationalize? Responsible reporting gets the facts right while avoiding language that stokes fear, misrepresents scale, or obscures accountability. If coverage heavily features natural disaster or war metaphors, or leaves you feeling powerless in the face of events that feel uncontrollable and unattributable, those are red flags. Precise numbers beat vague language. “Three protestors threw rocks at police” conveys a precise scale; “violence exploded” does not. It also avoids mistakenly implying that responsibility or support for violence extends to an entire group.
Does the reporting provide context? Reporting should note whether a targeted community has a history of being scapegoated and whether the event is connected to broader political narratives. Relying on experts for context is also important. Extremists use violence as a tool to amplify their reach, so reporting should never provide an unfiltered platform for violent actors and their ideologies. When a violent event involves agents of the state, journalists cannot limit their coverage to the immediate episode. They must explore whether and how the incident was part of a larger set of operations or events, and whether anyone faces accountability. Context is also critical for reporting on government responses. Violence can serve as a pretext for infringing on rights and freedoms or intimidating political opposition. Reporting should indicate when violence is being used to justify authoritarian crackdowns in the name of restoring “law and order.”
Does the reporting include the people targeted, their response, and additional condemnations of the violence? Political violence frequently aims to push targeted groups from public life — from voting and running for office to attending everyday community events — and to make everyday community members feel powerless in the face of repression. It has historically targeted Black, immigrant, LGBTQ, Jewish, Arab, and Muslim communities. But the threats to these communities are not the entire story. Communities take concrete steps to repair harm in the face of violence and protect public participation, particularly for those targeted. Reporting should cover these as well, taking particular care to engage with and amplify the perspectives of those targeted. Coverage should also highlight condemnations of political violence, especially from voices whose politics might otherwise seem to align with those responsible. Condemnation from an unexpected place reaffirms how widely violent tactics are rejected — and that itself is important context.
The stakes rise with the midterms on the horizon
Violence is a tool for disrupting elections. It can create an environment of fear and uncertainty that primes voters to believe conspiracy theories or false claims of fraud.
Read more — Are reporters doing a good job covering protests?
We have already seen the Trump administration lay the groundwork: surveillance and intimidation of protestors and physical violence against the administration’s opponents. Violence can also serve as a pretext for the crackdown itself — a rationale for “restoring law and order” that conveniently expands federal power over dissent. When Renée Good and Alex Pretti were killed in Minneapolis, video footage undercut the federal government’s claims of terrorism almost immediately, showing how far the official narrative had drifted from reality.
As communities across the country organize to ensure every eligible voter can safely participate in the midterm elections this fall, responsible coverage is not a luxury; it’s a democratic necessity. All of us should ask whether the news we’re reading or watching gives us facts we can act on, or just feelings we can’t.
There is a lot each of us can do to help protect our democracy in this critical moment. Caring for our neighbors, engaging our communities, and finding ways to use our voices are all essential. As we confront the dual challenges of political violence and authoritarian attempts to weaponize it, being clear-eyed about both the real risks of violence and the risk of its exploitation is a responsibility we all share.
I worry that the people who most need to read this are the ones who will not.
Thank you for your work in this area.