A new essay in American Thinker by J.B. Shurk, published September 25, 2026, argues that the Democratic Party has systematically normalized political violence and that the media and establishment Washington have enabled it through what the author calls a longstanding double standard.
The piece, titled “We Need to Talk about Democrats,” opens by invoking the 2011 film We Need to Talk about Kevin — about a mother coming to terms with her son’s murder spree — as a metaphor for what Shurk describes as a party whose base has grown comfortable with violence against political opponents. The essay is opinion commentary, and the claims below are the author’s arguments and the evidence he cites, not independently verified conclusions.
The 2017 congressional baseball shooting
Shurk anchors his argument in the June 2017 shooting at a Republican congressional baseball practice in Alexandria, Virginia. The gunman, an Illinois man and supporter of Bernie Sanders, opened fire on Republican members of Congress and others. Four people were shot, including then-House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, who was critically injured. The shooter was killed by law enforcement.
Shurk notes that 24 Republican congressmen were present that day and argues the attack was “unprecedented” in targeting a branch of the federal government. The shooter carried a list of Republican congressmen and had another list in a storage locker, and he had written on social media that “Trump is a Traitor” and that “It’s Time to Destroy Trump & Co.” He also belonged to Facebook groups with names hostile to the Republican Party, according to the essay.
The author criticizes the FBI’s initial handling of the case, writing that the bureau declined to ascribe a motive and first classified the attack as “suicide by cop” before reclassifying it as domestic terrorism after public outcry. Shurk frames that sequence as part of a broader institutional reluctance to name partisan violence when it comes from the left.
The ‘both sides’ response
Shurk also directs fire at his own side’s establishment. He recalls then-Senator Jeff Flake urging the country to “tone it down” after the shooting — a call Shurk describes as implicitly blaming newly inaugurated President Trump for the attack.
He contrasts that response with the aftermath of January 6, 2021, when Trump supporters protested at the U.S. Capitol over the 2020 election. Shurk argues that establishment figures immediately labeled that event an “attack” and described participants as domestic terrorists and traitors, with some commentators comparing it to 9/11, Pearl Harbor, and the Civil War. In his telling, many of those same voices had earlier excused violence and property destruction during the summer of 2020 as “social justice.”
That disparity, Shurk contends, set the stage for later attacks on conservatives, including what he describes as multiple assassination attempts on Trump and the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Polls on Democrats and political violence
To support his thesis, Shurk cites a 2022 Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports poll on attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccine mandates. According to his account, 55% of Democratic voters supported government fines for the unvaccinated; 59% favored confining unvaccinated Americans to their homes; 48% supported fines and imprisonment for those who publicly questioned the vaccines’ efficacy; 45% backed relocating unvaccinated Americans to quarantine camps; 47% wanted the government to monitor and track them; and 29% wanted children removed from parents who refused the vaccine.
He also points to a survey by the Center for Strategic Politics, which polled only Democratic voters about how they would feel if Trump were unable to complete his term under five scenarios. Shurk reports that 87% said they would feel “very” or “somewhat positive” if Trump were impeached, convicted, and removed; 84% if his cabinet declared him unfit and removed him; 55% if he died in his sleep; 59% — with another 13% indifferent — if a faction of the military overthrew him; and 32% — with another 25% indifferent — if he were assassinated. Combining categories, Shurk writes that 72% of Democrats would be okay with a military coup and 57% would be okay with a presidential assassination.
He cites additional research: a 2025 study by Rutgers University’s Social Perception Lab with the Network of Contagion Research Institute on an emerging “assassination culture” on the left, which he says found 55% of left-leaning Americans supported Trump’s assassination; and a Manhattan Institute finding that after the 2024 attempt on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, a third of Democrats wished he had been killed.
Reaction to Kirk and Thompson killings
Shurk then turns to the killings of Charlie Kirk and of UnitedHealthcare executive Brian Thompson. He claims that after Kirk’s assassination, Democrats celebrated on social media, quoting a nurse in Atlanta and asserting that professors, teachers, and doctors are still marking the killing a year later. He also criticizes comedian Bill Burr for suggesting the worst part of Thompson’s murder was that it hadn’t changed insurance industry practices, and comedian John Oliver for joking about the suspect’s appearance. He accuses The New York Times of assigning two writers to defend what he calls the left’s enjoyment of political violence.
The essay closes by returning to its central claim: that a party whose supporters express enthusiasm for murder has forfeited the presumption of good faith. Readers should weigh the piece as advocacy — a partisan argument assembled from a mix of documented incidents, poll results, and the author’s interpretation of elite rhetoric.
Source: www.americanthinker.com — https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/09/we-need-to-talk-about-democrats/