Last week's deadly shooting at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Dallas is the latest in a disturbing pattern of politically charged violence.
Those range from 2017's shooting at a congressional baseball practice, to the attack on U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi's husband in 2022, to two assassination attempts on Donald Trump during the 2024 campaign.
Amid the violence, experts warn of escalating rhetoric fueling real-world harm — both nationally and here in Texas.
So, why is this happening and what could be done? A closer look at the environment around these events could point to the answer.
Just hours after last Wednesday's attack on the Dallas ICE facility, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem blamed "far-left" rhetoric for fueling the shooting before any evidence of the shooter's background or motive became public.
This is in contrast to a report from the Anti-Defamation League released earlier this year showing that since 2015, two-thirds of extremist-related killings in the U.S. were committed by right-wing extremists.
Still, Noem's statements specifically pointed to Democrats who've criticized ICE for the methods they've recently used to detain people in the U.S. without legal status – like in July, when U.S. Rep. John Garamendi (D-California) called ICE agents "a bunch of thugs out there in full battle gear" that assault people.
And the rhetoric isn't just around immigration, and it isn't only solely from Democrats. Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott name-called Democrats for leaving the state over proposed congressional maps that benefitted Republicans, an act he called "un-Texan."
"Texans don't run from a fight. These are quitters. They are cowards," Abbott said.
Around the same time, Attorney General Ken Paxton was calling on Democrats to be
arrested, posting on X that, "we should use every tool at our disposal to hunt down those who think they are above the law."
So far, according to the courts, Democrats breaking quorum broke no laws.
While they were using this sort of rhetoric, a bomb threat was called on the hotel some Democrats were staying in — something Abbott later condemned.
But the name-calling and hardline speech is part of the rhetoric lawmakers say they want to put an end to — something they believe is fueling violent acts.
More prevalent than violence, though, is the animosity among everyday Americans. That's what Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston, says. He points to a 2022 Pew Research Study showing that a majority of Republicans and Democrats view each other negatively.
Rottinghaus says the way politicians talk about one another is deepening the polarization we see in American politics.
"Politicians are always talking in these very profound and angry terms about the politics of issues. That definitely has an impact as well," Rottinghaus said. "It's not just about talking about violence and the interactions that may turn in this more aggressive demeanor. It's also just the intense partisan rhetoric on every issue that has now come to dominate the political conversation."
Rottinghaus sees the rise in political violence as partly a response to that rhetoric.
"We're seeing a rise in both, and although it's not a directly linear relationship, you're certainly seeing the increasing polarization intertwined with people's feeling that the only option they have in some cases is political violence," Rottinghaus said.
Josh Blank, a political scientist at UT-Austin, says how people consume information also plays a role.
"In particular, social media and the ability of people already disturbed – angry or both – to seek out a nonstop stream of confirmatory, if not hallucinatory, information promotes extreme responses from people," Blank said.
So where do we go from here? Rottinghaus believes it will take leaders choosing to set a different tone.
"Elites have gotten us into this, and elites can get us out of this," he said.
While politicians across the political spectrum continue to say they don't condone political violence, how they act — and how they speak — going forward may determine whether things improve.
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