OPINION:
The terrorism, assassinations and assaults across America are horrendous, but what is causing them?
Answering this question requires taking a broader perspective and assessing whether these acts of violence and terrorism are distinct events or whether a nexus exists.
Let us start with the attempted assassination of Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. Prominent Democrats labeled the Supreme Court as illegitimate, extremist and out of control. Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison said it was “illegitimate” and filled with “political extremists.”
In 2020, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, threatened the conservative justices in the event they didn’t vote the way he wanted on abortion. “I want to tell you, Gorsuch. I want to tell you, Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price,” he said. “You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”
I do not recall any Democrat condemning the Kavanaugh assassination attempt.
Numerous prominent Democrats have repeatedly called President Trump a dictator, fascist and racist, even after two assassination attempts on his life. Democrats, including President Biden, did not directly condemn the attempts. The party’s response was simply, “Political violence in any form against any American is unacceptable.” That’s not condemnation; it’s muted acquiescence.
Despite numerous calls by Republicans to tone down the rhetoric, Charlie Kirk was assassinated in September. Democrats and their allies in the media had labeled Kirk as racist and hateful. An NBC News poll conducted in October showed that 54% of Democrats believed the extreme political rhetoric from “some in the media and by political leaders” was a major factor in Kirk’s assassination.
What about the assaults on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement? We saw Democrats, including Rep. LaMonica McIver of New Jersey, call for resistance and attack officers. Ms. McIver was charged with assaulting, resisting and impeding federal officials. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested on trespassing charges for refusing to leave a secured area. Several Democrats were arrested in Chicago and New York City as they tried to force their way into ICE facilities.
ICE officers were shot at in Texas, and one was struck in the neck. In Portland, Oregon, ICE officers were punched and kicked and had incendiary devices thrown at them. The Department of Homeland Security reported a 1,153% increase in assaults against ICE law enforcement officers from 2024 to 2025.
Then we saw the extreme violence by “Free Palestine” demonstrators across America. After Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, genocidal attack in Israel, Democrats didn’t waste an opportunity to incite more terrorism. The “Squad” — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley — voted against a congressional resolution condemning the attacks and advanced an antisemitic narrative and support for further violent and disruptive demonstrations.
Is it therefore not illogical to associate their rhetoric with recent plans by pro-Palestinian, anti-government, anti-capitalist leftists to set off multiple bombs? (It is worth noting that the alleged domestic terrorists are radical left, not White supremacists, Republicans or innocent parents, whom Democrats have blamed for the majority of violence.)
Last, we must look at the mass shootings by transgender people, as there is a similar pattern of rhetoric there. Democrats have pushed the lie that men can be women and women can be men. The volatility of this subject is extremely high among those with gender dysphoria. Transgender people have an excessively high suicide rate, so inciting those already mentally unstable to hurt others does not take much effort.
When we look at these events from a broader perspective, it becomes clear that they are not distinct and separate events but part of a deliberate strategy using rhetoric and narratives to incite proxies to act. The proxies are typically fringe, mentally unstable or already prone to violence against themselves or others. Democrats leverage these people to do their dirty work: conduct violent and reprehensible acts to sow terror and disruption, and then use that environment to seize power.
Democrats seem to be deliberately fostering violence throughout the United States using these proxies. Despite numerous calls to tone down such rhetoric, Democrats only increase it and then feign ignorance. This isn’t politics; it’s part of an ongoing cognitive war, the Democrats’ blood revolution to seize absolute power.
Many other groups can be exploited in this manner as proxies or allies willing to threaten the United States, including China, terrorist drug cartels, Russia and illegals.
Democrats have tried mightily to distance themselves from any role in the violence we are seeing, but now their strategy has been exposed. Does it include all Democrats? No. Still, the majority of the party has been subverted by radical left extremists. While they’re at it, they are also pushing the false story that Mr. Biden’s inflation is a Republican-made problem. It’s working — for now.
• Edward Haugland is the author of “The Cognitive War” and a leading national expert in this field. He is an award-winning CIA analyst and retired Defense Department intelligence executive, as well as a U.S. Air Force veteran, with more than four decades of service in national security across multiple executive branch departments and agencies.
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