Most Utahns reject political violence. Why are some still willing to justify it?

Political violence in the United States has become a finger-pointing game. Who’s to blame — the media, academia, politicians?

“We all think it’s from somewhere else,” Adam Goldstein, vice president of strategic initiatives at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Freedom, said. “It’s us, OK?”

“Even if we’re not the ones doing it, when we either lionize the ones who do, or we suggest it’s acceptable, or we fail to react with the logical aversion to violence, we make it easier for those who want to act with violence,” he told the Deseret News.

A recent Deseret News-Hinckley Institute of Politics poll conducted by Morning Consult showed that Utahns — for the most part — reject the notion that political violence can be circumstantially justified.

Of the 802 Utahns polled, 72% said political violence is never justified, while 15% felt there were extreme situations where violent action would be justified. Just 5% agreed political violence can be justified in a range of situations.

Young people ages 18-34 were the most likely to say political violence is sometimes justified (28%), while religious and older Utahns were more likely to say political violence is never justified.

“The Utahns who do rationalize it reach for the language of lost rights and broken trust in government: fear that their free speech, their liberties, or the Constitution itself are no longer safe,” Chase Thomas, senior policy adviser at Alliance for a Better Utah, told the Deseret News.

“That is a crisis of faith in the system, and economic insecurity feeds the same despair, when people work full time and still can’t afford rent or a home no matter who wins,” he added.

The Utahns who said political violence could be justified were then asked in what situations that would be true. Among those situations, they were more likely to favor political violence if it was perceived as defensive rather than offensive, such as:

Self-defense against government violence (60%), foreign government involvement against U.S. citizens (42%), violations of free speech or religious liberty (38%), restriction of individual liberties (38%0, and government officials refusing to follow the Constitution (30%).

Jason Perry, director of the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah, said he doesn’t believe this is exposing any violent nature in Utahns; “I think it’s people saying here’s where my limit is, and hoping they never get there.”

“Utahns are not saying they want to pick a fight. They are thinking about what they would do if the systems around them failed,” he told the Deseret News. “And honestly, that tracks with Utah’s broader culture around individual rights and constitutional values. I don’t think this is people endorsing violence.”

A belief that words are no longer enough

Despite their differing ideologies and targets, the published manifestos attributed to the alleged perpetrators of recent politically motivated attacks share some similarities. One is that they frame their political violence as an unfortunate but supposedly necessary response to forces the authors believed were harming society or themselves.

Messages between Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin, Tyler Robinson, and his partner depict a troubled 22-year-old who believed Kirk was full of “hatred” and that this was enough to justify ending the young father and husband’s life.

“Some hate can’t be negotiated out,” Robinson texted his partner, per the documents.

Cole Thomas Allen, the 31-year-old who allegedly charged past a security checkpoint armed with weapons and exchanged gunfire with Secret Service agents outside the White House correspondents’ dinner, claimed it went against his “Christian values” to look away when others are being oppressed.

Goldstein said the writings of these alleged aggressors show they don’t see themselves as violent.

“Some of it has to do with the sense that existing systems are inadequate to correct whatever the grievances,” he said. And then they rationalize violence as an acceptable and defensive response.

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Nihilism and the Charlie Kirk shooting

“It’s almost always, ‘Well, this thing is happening to me or to us, and therefore I have to do this because I don’t have a legitimate method of expressing myself,’” Goldstein said, “and so that speaks both to the lack of trust in the institutions and the casual erosion of the distinction between speech and violence.”

He expressed concern that when people begin treating speech as violence, some eventually conclude that violence is simply another form of speech.

“If words are violence, then violence is a means of expressing my disagreement,” Goldstein explained.

Utahns are worried about political violence

Polling showed Utahns are “very” or “somewhat concerned” about the following:

Political violence (82%), safety at political events (81%), civil unrest (79%), threats to free speech (79%), domestic terrorism (78%), gun violence (78%) hate speech (76%), and the safety of elected officials (65%).

The assassination of Kirk wasn’t something that Utahns found out about on television. It happened in their state, at a university many Utahns have personally visited. And for thousands, it happened right in front of them. Political violence feels much more real when it’s in your backyard than an incident that occurs thousands of miles away.

Who’s fueling the flame of political violence?

Polling showed slightly more Utahns pin blame on the political right than the left in terms of who bears more responsibility for the current climate surrounding political violence, while a plurality, 37%, blame the left and right equally.

Democrats in Utah were much more likely to say the right bears more responsibility for political violence, with 59% saying the right compared to 26% saying the left and right equally, and only 3% saying the left.

Among Utah Republicans, 34% said the left bears more responsibility for political violence, compared to 37% who said the left and right are equally responsible, and 15% who blamed the right.

Perry said it’s a good sign that a plurality of all Utahns acknowledge concerns with both political parties. “Across the board, people are uneasy,” he said. ”It tells you something real is going on. That should matter to anyone in a leadership position.”

On a national scale, public opinion mirrors how Utahns feel — Americans are deeply polarized in who they blame, and those blame patterns track almost perfectly with partisan identity, a recent survey by the Public Religion Research Institute conveyed.

“Leaders on both the left and the right share the responsibility to lower the temperature,” Thomas said, “and that means proving the system can still protect people’s rights and deliver for their lives, instead of just campaigning against each other.”

Jesse Arm, vice president of external affairs at The Manhattan Institute, a think tank “dedicated to advancing opportunity, individual liberty, and the rule of law in America,” said political violence is wrong no matter who the target is, while pinning most of the blame on the political left.

“We have a very bad left-wing political violence problem in this country,” which is fed by a normalization or justification of violence, he said.

He gave several examples, including the multiple assassination attempts against President Donald Trump, the man who firebombed demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado, who were showing support for Israeli hostages held in Gaza, and the alleged assassin Luigi Mangione, who is currently on trial for the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Arm said he is particularly troubled by what he sees as a growing willingness among some activists and online commentators to rationalize or celebrate violence against people viewed as ideological adversaries.

Mangione, for example, has drawn a dedicated group of supporters, including the self-proclaimed “Mangionistas” who attend his court hearings in New York and justify his alleged murder, per The New York Post.

The alleged killer has received more than $1.5 million in financial legal support.

Mamdani won't pull press passes for ghoulish Luigi Mangione fangirls who said Brian Thompson's children are 'better off without him' https://t.co/WBg6iN1g60 pic.twitter.com/XplbHCxNEv

— New York Post (@nypost) May 19, 2026

“We should be clear-eyed about where this violence is emanating from,” Arm told the Deseret News. “But even those who are not themselves engaging in violence are seeking to normalize and elevate commentators who routinely communicate in terminology that eggs on violence and is radical in its orientation, and that seeks to excuse political violence.”

But whether these aggressors acted on political ideology or because they have a “savior complex,” Arm doesn’t necessarily care to understand the motives behind the attacks; what he views as more important for ending political violence is deterrence and punishment.

“What I care more about is policing it out of existence,” he said, “both the wannabe assassins and the agitators in the streets who support them.”

He continued, “Reorienting our societal incentives as such that we know these people are going to receive speedy trials followed by the death penalty, and we’re not going to turn them into martyrs and make them famous,” he said. “And if people are out there celebrating murder, we are going to treat them like the social, the abnormal freaks, and nihilists that they are.”