The Unruly States of America

April 30, 2026

The USA is a country and a cauldron. Americans wring their hands about gun violence and the current state of affairs, but the place has always been volatile, combustible, corruptible, and increasingly ungovernable. I was in high school in Chicago when President John Kennedy was assassinated, and five years later, his brother and Martin Luther King Jr. were gunned down. Movies taught us that “nice guys finish last,” and that money or moxie made you successful, not education or good manners. City Hall was corrupt, the Deep South was racist, black people were lynched with impunity, cops took bribes, and the Mafia controlled unions and the streets. In the 1960s, protests proliferated, but the cops used live ammunition. Young men were dragged into the army because they were poor, couldn’t afford college, or didn’t have a father with connections. Some boys I knew died, and I left in 1966. But 60 years later, America still roils, has more guns than people, and now has a President who talks like a mob boss. He’s been shot at by assassins three times because he stirs and stokes the cauldron more than anyone has before.

Trump threatens violence in the Oval Office against enemies

Watching Trump in action, insulting and berating the press, competitors, heads of state, the Pope, and allies, is like watching a replay of Chicago Mayors in the 1950s. Shamelessly partisan, he butters up the bad guys, for personal and political gain, then is nasty and insensitive to most everyone else. Trump dodged Vietnam because one of his father’s tenants was a chiropodist and “diagnosed” that he had bone spurs. Then, in later years, Trump slurred deceased military veterans by calling them “losers”, slandered the Pope for preaching peace, called respected journalists “horrible people and liars”, and said, “I hate my opponents, and I don’t want the best for them.” He once bragged to radio bigmouth, Howard Stern, that his dating life in Manhattan during the war was his “personal Vietnam” and that he was a “great and very brave soldier” to have avoided STDs.

Trump’s ugly rhetoric is unbecoming of the presidency, but worse, it has become systemic, normalizing apocalyptic language that leads to violence. American discourse is now incendiary and alarming – on the airwaves, in newspapers, in bars, and across kitchen tables. To news anchors, every election contest is “existential”. Opponents vilify and drag one another through the mud. Each policy disagreement is elevated – through a battery of partisan “network commentators” – into a moral emergency. Major networks are no longer required to provide balanced coverage but are blatantly biased – CNN is Democrat, MS Now is Democrat on steroids, and Fox is Trump’s propaganda machine. Add to this the rise of loopy podcasters and digital influencers—unregulated, unfiltered, inaccurate, and unapologetically biased—and the result is a cacophony of endless outrage.

This environment isolates and stokes all Americans, not just zealots. It explains in part why a recent crop of assassins is not disadvantaged, but are educated and politically engaged. The alleged White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooter was a computer scientist, an engineer, and lived with his family. The man accused of murdering a health care CEO had graduated from an Ivy League school. Both published manifestos that catastrophize the country’s situation and blame their targets, just as America’s vicious public discourse does. Each side demonizes the other. Each amplifies worst-case scenarios. Each feeds its audience a steady diet of grievance. Violence is inevitable.

Trump’s Capitol Riot in 2021

The consequences of America’s hateful political “conversation” are measurable. Since the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack, political violence has surged. More than 520 acts of terrorism and targeted violence were recorded in just the first half of 2025. While right-wing extremism has historically accounted for the majority of deadly attacks, recent data suggests a sharp uptick in left-wing incidents—enough to temporarily surpass right-wing activity in sheer volume, according to a recent study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The rise of the “lone assassin” makes prevention and detention difficult. The era of organized extremist groups is mostly gone, and now experts state that there is an “ungrouping” or decentralization of self-radicalized individuals. They act independently and do not commit random violence. It is political violence with a purpose. It is fuelled by America’s libertarian and anything-goes laws and the failure to protect public officials from libel and slander. Any public official is “fair game”, unlike in Canada or Europe, where you cannot libel or slander anyone unless you have evidence, provable in court. Unchallenged name-calling is dangerous to society and democracy because it intimidates or frightens away debate and candidates.

America’s social distemper, spreading violence, and incivility are now symptoms of societal drift and are eroding politics and national pride. It’s rooted in libertarianism, based on individualism, free markets, and suspicion of centralized power, which has been a driving force behind America’s technological innovation and economic growth, fostering an environment that encourages risk-taking and competition. However, outright libertarianism and social cohesion or safety are at odds. Libel is not freedom of speech, but weaponry. Keeping the balance is essential and simple. As a high school teacher once explained to us: “Freedom is the right to swing your arm but not hit anyone else with it.”

The deeper issue is cultural. Violence underpins America’s history and is becoming worse. This is not because Americans are inherently more violent, but because the moral boundaries that once constrained behavior have eroded. After surviving his latest assassination attempt, Trump shrugged it off as part of the political “turf”. He dismissed the attacker as a “whack job” but offered no substantive reflection on the broader climate that made such an act conceivable, nor did he provide remedies or comfort. There was no mention of gun control by him or his team. In fact, his Attorney General said from the sidelines that “this was not the time to talk about gun laws”.

If not now, when?