Assassination Culture

Study from Rutgers University on the "Assassination Culture" *thanks to our friend Travis Yates for the reference.

**We are not the same.

"A broader “assassination culture” appears to be emerging within segments of the U.S. public on the extreme left. NCRI empirically assessed this shift with original survey data and open source intelligence analysis to assess how normalized and justified violence against the administration has become in public discourse. The findings signal a threat to political stability and public safety. Key data points include:

● Murder Justification: 31% and 38% of respondents stated it would be at least somewhat justified to murder Elon Musk and President Trump, respectively.

○ These effects were driven by respondents that self-identified as left of center, with 50% and 56% at least somewhat justifying murder for Elon Musk and President Trump, respectively.

● Property Destruction: Nearly 40% of respondents stated it is at least somewhat acceptable to destroy a Tesla dealership in protest.

● Psychological/Ideological Correlations with Assassination Culture: These beliefs are highly correlated with one another, as well as with the justification of the murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO and hyper-partisan left-wing ideology.

○ We hypothesize that support for violence is part of a broader assassination culture, underpinned by psychological and ideological factors.

● Online Amplification of Radical Ideation: Our analysis supports the belief that BlueSky plays a significant and predictive role in amplifying radical ideation.

○ Users are increasingly associating the memeification of Luigi Mangione with calls for political violence against Musk, Trump, and others, reflecting the growing cyber-social presence of assassination culture."