“My dad has been shot,” Hope Hoffman, daughter of Minnesota State Senator John Hoffman, said on a call with 911 following the shooting of her parents. “They came after him because…he [is] a senator.”
Politically targeted violence has been on the rise in the nation. Many examples exist, including the attempted assassinations of Minnesota Representative John Hoffman, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, President Donald Trump, and the killings of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk and Minnesota Democratic representative Melissa Hortman and her husband.
Hortman and her husband were murdered on June 14, 2025, in Brooklyn Park by Vance Boelter, an assailant disguised as a police officer. They had two kids, Sophie and Colin. Kirk was murdered on Sept. 10, 2025, by Tyler James Robinson, while debating college students on the Utah Valley University grounds in Orem, Utah, as a part of his “American Comeback” tour. Kirk was married to Erika Kirk and had two kids.
According to a recent poll by PBS News/NPR/Marist, the percentage of people who believe political violence is “needed to get [the] country back on track” increased in the past year and a half, from 19% to 30%. This number is even higher among the younger population. Following the attempted assassination of Trump, a few students said things like “I wish the bullet had been an inch to the right” or that they “wish he hadn’t turned his head.” This isn’t to suggest that most or even many people at the school believe this, but in some way, they provide firsthand support for this trend.
Social studies teacher Mackenzie McIlmail said that political violence is not okay, and noted the success of “nonviolent [movements that] achieved their political goals” as an alternative. McIlmail suggested that a reason for such a trend is that “older generations have seen peaceful, nonviolent movements be successful,” noting anti-war and civil rights protests, while younger generations have largely not, and feel like “they’re running out of options to create change.”
Utah Governor Spencer Cox, following Kirk’s assassination, said, “The problem with political violence [is that] it metastasizes because we can always point the finger at the other side.” Rachel Kleinfeld, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, added, “The more people [who] justify violence from their side of the aisle, the more… people will commit violence from that side… and the more that will justify the other side in doing the same.” In addition to the “raised temperature” the killings have caused, McImail worries about “people [holding up] these shooters as role models of resistance.”
Kirk once said, “When you stop having a human connection with someone you disagree with, it becomes a lot easier to commit violence,” a reason for which he believed debating was so important. McIlmail “would be concerned if we lose sight of the humanity of the victims… Sometimes you’ll see people who are targeted for political violence and then become poster children for a certain cause. And in the end, the family is really hurt by that, because the victim’s full humanity is not seen.” Kirk and Hortman, like Hoffman, Shapiro, and Trump, were human with families and children.
McIlmail advised to “exercise [in] nonviolent political action,” such as “go[ing] to a rally,” “volunteer[ing] somewhere,” or “be[ing] a poll watcher.” She says that “you meet other people who are engaging in nonviolent political action… it makes you have a little more faith in your common man.”
Following Hortman’s assassination, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz stated, “We have demonstrated again and again in our state that it is possible to peacefully disagree, that our state is strengthened by civil public debate.” Walz added, “We must stand united against all forms of violence.”
Governor Cox said, “At some point, we have to find an off-ramp, or it’s going to get much, much worse.” He added, in an interview with CNN, that whether Kirk’s assassination is something that “wake[s] us up in a way that we actually change” will “depend on…all of us.”
