If it wasn\u2019t already clear from all those other incidents, Kirk\u2019s killing put it in sharp relief: The U.S. is in a new era of political violence, one that is starker and more visceral than any other in decades \u2014 perhaps, experts said, since the fraught days of 1968<\/a>, when two of the most prominent figures in the civil rights movement, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, were both assassinated in a matter of months.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re very clearly in a moment where the temperature of our political discourse is extremely high,\u201d said Ruth Braunstein, an associate professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University who has studied religion and the far right in modern politics. \u201cPart of what we see when that happens are these outbursts of political violence \u2014 where people come to believe that violence is the only solution.\u201d<\/p>\n While the exact motives of the person who shot Kirk are still unknown, Braunstein and other experts on political violence said the factors shaping the current moment are clear \u2014 and similar to those that shaped past periods of political violence.<\/p>\n Intense economic discomfort and inequity<\/a>. Sharp divisions between political camps. Hyperbolic political rhetoric. Political leaders who lack civility and constantly work to demonize their opponents. A democratic system that many see as broken, and a hopelessness about where things are headed.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are these moments of great democratic despair, and we don\u2019t think the political system is sufficiently responsive, sufficiently legitimate, sufficiently attentive, and that\u2019s certainly going on in this particular moment,\u201d said Jon Michaels, a UCLA law professor who teaches about the separation of powers and co-authored \u201cVigilante Nation: How State-Sponsored Terror Threatens Our Democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf we think there are no political solutions, there are no legal solutions, people are going to resort to forms of self help that are really, really deeply troubling.\u201d<\/p>\n Michaels said the country has been here before, but also that he worries such cycles of violence are occurring faster today and with shorter breaks in between \u2014 that while \u201cwe\u2019ve been bitterly divided\u201d for years, those divisions have now \u201ccompletely left the arena of ideas and debate and contestation, and become much more kinetic.\u201d<\/p>\n Michaels said he is still shaken by all the \u201cdefenses or explanations or rationalizations\u201d that swirled around the country after the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson<\/a> in New York City in December \u2014 which some people argued was somehow justified by their displeasure with UnitedHealthcare\u2019s policies or frustration with the American healthcare system.<\/p>\n That the suspect, Luigi Mangione, would attract almost cult-like adoration<\/a> in some circles seemed like an alarming shift in an already polarized nation, Michaels said.<\/p>\n \u201cI understand it is not the beliefs of the typical person walking down the street, but it\u2019s seeping into our culture slowly but surely,\u201d he said \u2014 and in a way that makes him wonder, \u201cWhere are we going to be in four or five years?\u201d<\/p>\n People across America were asking similar questions about Wednesday\u2019s shooting, wondering in which direction it might thrust the nation\u2019s political discourse in the days ahead.<\/p>\n How will Kirk\u2019s many conservative fans \u2014 including legions of young people<\/a> \u2014 respond? How will leaders, including Trump, react? Will there be a shared recognition that such violence does no good, or fresh attempts at retaliation and violence?<\/p>\n Leaders from both parties seemed interested in averting the latter. One after another, they denounced political violence and defended Kirk\u2019s right \u2014 everyone\u2019s right \u2014 to speak on politics in safety, regardless of whether their message is uplifting or odious.<\/p>\n Democrats were particularly effusive in their denunciations, with Gov. Gavin Newsom \u2014 a chief Trump antagonist \u2014 calling the shooting \u201cdisgusting, vile, and reprehensible.\u201d<\/a> Former President Obama also weighed in, writing, \u201cWe don\u2019t yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n Many seemed dismissive of such messages. In the comments on Obama\u2019s post, many blamed Obama and other Democrats for rhetoric demonizing Republicans \u2014 and Trump and his followers in particular \u2014 as Nazis or racists or fascists, suggesting that the violence against Kirk was a predictable outcome of such pitched condemnations.<\/p>\n