More than three decades ago, as a college sophomore, I received my first politically charged death threat. It came from someone who wanted me silenced—someone who felt justified in sending a menacing message simply because they disagreed with what I believed or said. Whether it was then, or after a later threat, I received advice that has lingered with me: The real danger isn’t the threats you hear but the ones you don’t—the people plotting quietly, who say nothing. Meant to steady my resolve, the advice lingered uneasily, a reminder that what we don’t know often casts a longer shadow than what we do. In today’s culture—one alarmingly comfortable with the dehumanization of political opponents and casual incitement—that unease feels like a drumbeat you can’t ignore.
What was once a whispered warning about isolated extremists now feels like a roaring tidal wave. The alleged assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on December 4, 2024, laid bare just how normalized violence has become in public discourse. Instead of a unified rejection of his murder, we saw grotesque celebrations online and dangerous rationalizations by prominent public figures—most notably Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
Equivocation in Words: Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders
Senator Elizabeth Warren’s initial comments, reported by The Huffington Post, shortly after the news broke, sparked immediate backlash. She condemned the violence but then added, “The visceral response from people across the country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the healthcare system. Violence is never the answer, but people can only be pushed so far.”
Senator Bernie Sanders struck a similar tone, saying, “I think what the outpouring of anger at the health care industry tells us is that millions of people understand that health care is a human right and that you cannot have people in the insurance industry rejecting needed health care for people while they make billions of dollars in profit.”
While both senators clarified that violence is never the answer, their equivocation—phrases like ‘people can only be pushed so far’—blurred the line between condemnation and rationalization, especially coming from leaders of such national influence. Their remarks provided a rhetorical backdoor, legitimizing the killer’s motive and emboldening those who see violence as an acceptable response to grievance.
This kind of equivocation is far from harmless. It feeds into a broader cultural sickness—one that dehumanizes political opponents and emboldens the unhinged to act on dangerous impulses.
Gleeful and Grotesque: The Online Reaction
The reaction to UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s assassination laid bare just how far public discourse has decayed. Instead of universal condemnation, social media platforms became breeding grounds for dark humor and casual cruelty.
As The New Yorker reports, one TikTok commenter remarked, “I’m sorry, prior authorization is required for thoughts and prayers,” a response that received more than fifteen thousand likes.
Journalist Taylor Lorenz added fuel to the fire, posting on Bluesky, “And they wonder why we want these executives dead.” She then cross-posted the name and photo of Kim Keck, CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield, alongside a suggestion for “very peaceful letter writing campaigns” against what she called “murderous insurance execs.”
Columbia University professor Anthony Zenkus, who has built a career addressing issues of trauma and violence, further exemplified the dehumanizing response—apparently unaware of the bitter irony. On X, he wrote, “Today, we mourn the death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, gunned down … wait, I’m sorry—today we mourn the deaths of the 68,000 Americans who needlessly die each year so that insurance company execs like Brian Thompson can become multimillionaires.”
This chilling rhetoric frames violence as a natural and even justifiable response to systemic grievances, reducing a man’s life to an ideological punchline.
Woody White and Public Incitement
The celebration of violence did not stop with Brian Thompson. Soon after, my friend Woody White became the target of explicit, public incitement. A post on social media read, “Honestly, Woody White should be ended exactly in the same manner as Brian Thompson … Woody White needs to be made afraid for his life because he is just another fascist right-wing piece of [expletive] attempting to undermine democracy in this country.”
This is not metaphorical rhetoric; it is a direct call to violence.
Woody is a respected attorney, a public servant, and a family man. He is also my friend. The post reflects an unsettling sickness in our political culture—a sickness that normalizes threats and incitements against those who hold dissenting views.
Woody’s situation is different from the whispered threats I received decades ago. This is not quiet plotting. This is public, explicit incitement of violence.
I have seen this sickness before. My late friend Mike Adams—a brilliant professor and fearless advocate for free speech—endured relentless harassment and vilification until he took his own life. I will write more about Mike in a later series of columns but suffice it to say: words matter. Words of violence enable violence.
A Missed Reckoning
The left had a chance for reflection after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump earlier this year. For a brief moment, there was silence—perhaps an acknowledgment that the rhetoric had gone too far. But the silence didn’t last. Soon enough, the same patterns appeared: rationalization, justification, and thinly veiled approval.
We’ve seen this before. In the 2017 attempted assassination of Congressman Steve Scalise, a Bernie Sanders supporter came dangerously close to turning a baseball field into a massacre. In 2022, a man armed with tactical gear and weapons was arrested near Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home, reportedly intending to assassinate him.
Each of these incidents should have been a wake-up call. Instead, the opportunity for reckoning was squandered—again and again.
The Hypocrisy of Selective Outrage
Violence is unacceptable. Always. Full stop. Yet too often, when the violence targets conservatives or those thought “villains,” outrage is muted or qualified. The same voices who decry hate speech and demand civility suddenly excuse violence when the target is politically inconvenient.
This selective outrage is not just hypocritical; it is dangerous. It signals to the unhinged that violence can be justified, even celebrated, if directed at the “right” people.
A Moment for Moral Courage
These incidents—Brian Thompson’s assassination, threats against Woody White, and attacks on Steve Scalise and Justice Kavanaugh—are not isolated. They reflect a deeper cultural rot: a society increasingly comfortable with dehumanization and violence as political tools.
This cannot continue. Public figures, especially on the left, must take responsibility for their rhetoric. There can be no “but” in the condemnation of violence. There can be no hedging, no contextualizing, no excuses. To do so is to give cover to those who believe violence is justified.
As individuals, we must reject this culture of grievance and dehumanization. We must choose grace over grievance, dignity over destruction, and dialogue over division.
The assassinations, threats, and incitements we are seeing are not isolated events. They are symptoms of a deeper sickness in our culture—one that treats political opponents as enemies to be destroyed and grievances as justification for harm.
There is still time to turn back. But doing so requires moral courage. Leaders must condemn violence unequivocally. Individuals must reject the cycle of outrage and grievance. And as a society, we must recognize that the path of dehumanization leads only to destruction.
If we do not act now—if we continue to excuse or normalize this culture of violence—we will lose not only our civility but the very foundation of our society itself.
The time for moral courage is now.
Charlton Allen is the founder and editor-in-chief of The American Salient and the founder of the Madison Center for Law & Liberty, Inc. Learn more about him at charltonallen.org.
