The only way to change those in government, at least in our present construct, is at the ballot box. But hyper-partisanship has the country at each other’s throats with assassination in the air.
Photographs of Thomas Crooks about an hour before he shot at Donald Trump on July 13, 2024. (U.S. Secret Service – Senate.gov/Wikimedia Commons/ Public Domain)
By John Kiriakou
Special to Consortium News
I have been thinking of writing this article for several days now. I did not initially intend to start it in this way. But this morning I woke up to a text message from a number that I did not recognize.
It said, “I saw you on the Dr. Phil Show. Dr. Phil isn’t going to save you and your shit family. Watch out.” I put the number, which showed a Maryland area code, into BeenVerified.com, but alas, it was a Google Voice number and was untraceable.
I’ll fill out an online form with the local police, but I know that it’ll be a waste of time.
This is not the first threat or pseudo-threat that I’ve received in my life. They seem to come every few months, usually from crazy people, and usually objecting to something I’ve said in a podcast or an interview.
I’ve been accused of being a Russian spy, a Chinese spy, and worse. Frankly, I don’t care. It doesn’t bother me. But it is, in my view, an indication of how we’ve moved to a national point of anger that hasn’t been seen in a very long time, at least in my lifetime.
A study by Rutgers University last month showed that 55 percent of progressives said that assassinating Donald Trump “definitely is” or “could be” be justifiable.
Forty-eight percent said the same of Elon Musk. The figures are both shocking and disappointing to me. But they aren’t anomalous. Rutgers and the Network of Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) call it “Assassination Culture.”
On one side, it’s now acceptable to call for the assassination of the sitting president, to set Teslas on fire and to elevate Luigi Mangione, the accused killer of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, as a role model in dealing with adversarial politics.
[See: Downplaying Ukrainian Connection to Latest Trump Plot]
On the other side, it is acceptable to deport people whose politics we don’t like, even to foreign dungeons and to have masked men kidnap people in the country legally, including American citizens, apparently, when we want to silence them.
I understand the anger out there. But come on — murder? Where did we lose our way?
Newt Gingrich, the Hyper-Partisan Era & the CIA
Former House Speaker Gingrich in 2022 in Phoenix. (Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 2.0)
This “Assassination Culture” didn’t just happen overnight. I believe that its origins lie in the House Speakership of Republican Newt Gingrich in the mid-1990s. But I’ll get to that in a minute. In the meantime, we can’t ignore the fact that, as the Church Committee revealed in 1975, the C.I.A. had been assassinating opponents real and imagined for decades.
You don’t like somebody’s politics? Kill them. Don’t like a certain policy that a world leader has adopted? Kill him. Don’t like Fidel Castro and can’t get to him? Pay the mafia to kill him. And there was literally no oversight of the C.I.A.’s activities, at least on Capitol Hill.
Murder became something that was normal, that was accepted. And for the most part, when the Church Committee revealed what the C.I.A. had been doing in the name of the American people, there was generally a collective shrug of the shoulders.
It’s no wonder that the U.S. is the only First World industrialized country that still has a death penalty. And if public opinion polls are to be believed, the death penalty is very popular.
Well, fast forward to the 1990s. Newt Gingrich was especially partisan, even by today’s standards. When I first arrived in Washington to go to college in 1982, it was a normal thing for a dozen members of Congress, of both parties, to share a group house on Capitol Hill. They lived together. They played poker together. They even went to church together. They left their political differences at the door. That’s laughable now.
Gingrich ushered in an era of extraordinary partisanship. The old adage about differences in foreign policy ending at the shore went into the trash can. The next thing we knew, a president was being impeached.
Well, politicians have long memories. Don’t think for a moment that Donald Trump’s impeachments weren’t payback for the treatment of Bill Clinton in 1997. And it’s only gotten worse from there.
Remember that in June 2017, as members of Congress practiced softball in advance of their annual Democrats versus Republicans game, a gunman opened fire, wounding four people, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) critically.
The gunman, James “Tom” Hodgkinson, who was identified by police as “a leftwing activist with a history of domestic violence,” finally died at George Washington University Hospital after what ended up being a 10-minute shootout with Capitol Police, who were present at the practice.
As recently as a week ago, there was yet another potentially deadly attack on an elected official for political reasons. Cody Balmer allegedly climbed a security fence at the Pennsylvania governor’s residence, evaded state troopers who provide security there, broke into the house, and set fire to it, all while Governor Josh Shapiro (D), his wife, and children were asleep in the home.
A trooper awakened them and they got out of the house safely.
Last night at about 2AM, my family and I woke up to bangs on the door from the Pennsylvania State Police after an arsonist set fire to the Governor’s Residence in Harrisburg.
The Harrisburg Bureau of Fire was on the scene and while they worked to put out the fire, we were…
— Governor Josh Shapiro (@GovernorShapiro) April 13, 2025
The house sustained significant fire damage. Balmer has been charged with four counts of attempted murder, terrorism and other offenses.
He told a 911 operator that he set the fire so that Shapiro knew that Balmer “would not take part in his plans for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people.”
I have no idea what the solution is to this problem. I suppose that we can’t force our elected officials into bipartisanship, especially when we routinely elect hyper-partisan people to the highest offices in the land.
But the rest of us can speak the truth to those around us. The only way to change those in government, at least in our present construct, is at the ballot box.
Killing people, or supporting their killing, does nothing to improve the situation. Have we forgotten what we’ve learned about the aftermath of Nov. 22, 1963; April 4, 1968; or June 6, 1968?
Did anything positive come out of those murders? I would say that’s a strong “no.”
John Kiriakou is a former C.I.A. counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act — a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration’s torture program.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Last question – did anything good come out of those ’60s assassinations?
Not for most of us. But, for the assassins? Long story short, I’m not going to try to sum up the whole book here, but, judging by what I learned from James Douglass’s, JFK and the Unspeakable, it seems like the parties who had him killed got what they wanted. Memo 263 was reversed, the budding detente with the USSR was nipped in the bud and JFK’s Peace Race along with it.
I’m sorry you got threatened and have been threatened before, John! You’re a nice man!
Just today I noticed a message to my website (I’m a musician) imploring me to kill myself. The reason given was that, according to the harrasser, I voted for Trump. I didn’t. I voted for Stein. He or she probably thought what people were saying right and left last year, that, “a vote for Stein is a vote for Trump.”
That was a stupid enough thing to say last year. But, after last November, it’s exceptionally stupid to continue to say it. The math doesn’t add up. Harris couldn’t win anyway.
And a few weeks ago a fellow musician threatened to rip my thumbs off (musicians need those to make a living), calling me a Putin Puppet. I had quoted a Joe Lauria piece imagining what it would have been like if the Maidan Coup had taken place in Washington DC.
So, even a music player with no political power whatsoever can get threatened.
I am opposed to assasinations because the reaction would only be worse than the present — though in the case of Trump, Musk or Vought it could be argued to be self defense. Ill go with what labor organizer, activist and poet Stewart Acuff wrote in the Blue Collar Review:
What If
The flat pop pop pop echoed in the predawn darkness of a
New York street
The healthcare insurance CEO fell from the marked bullets
of a 9mm ghost gun
He died as certainly dead as those denied critical care because
of his corporate policies
And we cheered, first for self preservation for healthcare when our families need it
The gun’s bullets were scratched with the words deny, delay, disrupt
Some of us cheered for our hatred of unnecessary pain and death and those who cause it
Some of us cheered for accountability for a system designed
to take everything we have to get critical care
And some of us cheered for our private ache for vengeance
It is how a violent world works where death matters only when those dying are rich and powerful
It is what happens when a match is scratched starting a fire in the trash
There’s no obligation to judge Luigi Mangione’s action
It stands as what it is: one of the inevitable reactions of people who refuse to be abused
By those who suck the blood and life of our lives, hearts and spirits
But there is another way
We are weakest when we act alone
What if we decide to act with the strength of one another
To begin where we live and work not waiting for anyone
to tell us what or how to do it
What if we learn that the life of child is worth more than
every fortune in the world?
What if we decide to change what we can no longer abide
Not waiting for elections and politicians but starting right now
To give the gift of a free and just country to those who follow us
It all begins with conversation as matter of fact as the weather
Or a question
Why do we let corporations run our lives?
“… for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.”
as lois gagnon stated above: the united states of america
were founded on the mass killing of people who were “in the way”.
hollywood glorified that genocide. the 2nd amend protects the right
to keep and bear arms – while the US arms industry is busy selling
– and/or in the case of my EU country $tationing – them abroad.
my own country’s arms makers have been drinking champagne
for months now as we are supposed to become “fit for war!” again,
after having initiated, and lost, two world wars already.
when did we last see MASSIVE PEACE EFFORTS being promoted?
to reduce fear, animosity, disrespect, insatiable greed? to protect
people[s] and their natural environment, for [a] change?
instead we are supposed to believe that “peace does not pay!”
while arms makers make more than a killing selling their wares.
following the unimaginable horrors of two world wars,
the int’l community came up with international agreements and
conventions no-one feels compelled to adhere to anymore …
are humans – by nature – incapable of coexisting peacefully?
will man [n]ever cease to be a wolf to man?
I suggest you consider that the ballot has served as check of government violence. The ballot is corrupted by bi-partisan censorship. Ballot access laws serve to entrench incumbent parties and their selected, not elected, candidates in control with a monopoly of power. The voters have been made impotent. This censorship with government’s own violence has bred a fascist mentality not only in government officials, but in a substantial part of the public.
It may, or may not, be too late to reverse this evolution into a fascist police state, but I ask we consider election reform to restore accountability to voters. This can be done by stripping the entrenched incumbent elite of their monopoly control of voters and the persons they prefer as alternative candidates to hold office. The means to that end is a write-in only voter verifiable general election ballot with its integrity secured with an encrypted secret ballot receipt as proposed by Dr. David Chaum. This makes sore loser laws void. This makes candidate exclusion by minorities with primary elections void. A century of bipartisan ballot censorship of voters has done much to bring us to the brink of a total fascist police state using a corrupt ballot.
This is all the reform needed, but it is essential that the ballot give voters SOME hope they can actually change government without violence.
American media and the deep state promote violence. So much media attention was given to that CEO’s murder because the billionaires know the public is angry, so stupid and pointless fake solutions are promoted. Anything to keep people focused away from the monopolists and financiers who own our government and increasingly the means to survive (housing, electricity, food, etc.)
We have an assasination culture because the ruling elite push assasination culture because it’s a dead-end to actual change. Actual change requires us Americans to make amends with our neighbors and direct our collective rage to those who deserve it. We unify and we change it, without violence.
Tired of the plebs wanting to kill oligarchs who are so far removed from their daily struggles that they become objects of hate? How about a system without oligarchs? The solution is a democratic political system. That’s literally it.
This country was founded on killing people who were in the way of the newcomers who coveted their land. What has changed? Only the technology that makes killing more efficient.
The Reagan-Bush campaign had a lot to do with the present disfunction of U.S. politics.
The closest most citizens get to any political or social movement is the TV. An immense powerlessness is ensured through the aesthetic power of MSM which informs, but what can a consumer labeled “Mere Consumer do?”. We are all so over educated that the emotional fury enabled by the seeming involvement provided by MSM is I believe, a primary cause for an incarcerated powerless citizen needing to do something. An hypnotic heroism is indoctrinated into the equivalence of the pre-pubescent mind, a little like the Spider Man outfits which provide eternal fearlessness for the wanna be Hero. Obey. Stay Home. Be indoctrinated. We care about what you think.
Kiriakou is right – the time for killing needs to end, both here and abroad …
I am glad someone else says we need to use the ballot box – the usual answer is “take to the streets in large numbers” – how large? given that over a million people in the streets were unable to to stop the war in Iraq in ’03, how many do we need to stop what’s going on now … Chris Hedges, in a recent Q&A, said “3-5 million” lotsa luck with that, given that we get all excited when Sanders gets 36,000 at a rally, whoopie-ding – and for how long ….
Hedges and others say elections are worthless for making change – yeah, vote, but expect nothing – but is that because the system is useless or because of the way we are using it – to elect the same duopoly over and over, and when we do that, of course it is insanity to expect anything different …
But, in spite of monumental efforts by both parties, esp.the Ds, to keep 3rd Parties off ballots, they have been, because of their monumental efforts, on them for decades, parties with much better candidates and platforms than the D/Rs – but we do not vote for them – why? Because we are told they can’t win? (But that’s baloney, any candidate on a ballot can win if enough people vote for ’em – and the Ds know this, which is why they do their best to keep them off ballots!) So we wind up believing we have only 2 choices, Ds or Rs, pick the LOTE, or stay home …has any one else noticed, that LOTE gets more and more E with each cycle …
This is on us, people …
Assassination is normalized.
Genocide is normalized.
War crimes are normalized.
Who are we, as a civilization? Sociopaths?
Torture is normalized, which Kiriakou went to jail for exposing in a kangaroo court trial (over 90% of federal criminal trials end in plea bargains. I believe his didn’t allow a jury? “national security”). Everything America does to foreigners eventually comes home domestically.
Obama made domestic propaganda legal with Official Narratives passed down from the State Dept/CIA to the old legacy media (now State Media as in any police state). This was perfected abroad and was essential to Russiagate and the F’ed up US Covid response, one of the worst in the world allowing CONTROL through Official Narratives and Censorship. The Federal Government is not a friend to the American People.
Perhaps the people are coming to the conclusion that violence is the only language these people seem to understand
With control of voting, who gets to vote, who does the counting, who can and cannot run for office in the hands of those we vote for, is it any wonder that people are quickly losing faith in the ballot box?
I remember many years ago Alexander Cockburn used to every so often write a column about how Washington imperialist violence abroad often then soon correlates to violence here on the home front. Wacked out returning soldiers carrying out PTSD induced homicides and domestic abuse, a population inured to heinous violence with leaders glib about inflicting it on thousands of innocent civilians in Third World countries. Cockburn would often hammer on this dynamic from time to time.
” leaders glib about inflicting it on thousands of innocent civilians”.
No, our chickenhawks REVEL in deaths of innocents, as if that is the measure of greatness in America. Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright, Hillary Clinton are just a few monstrous examples.
Actually no. In their pursuit of dominating the globe, if our ruling class had its druthers, most of them would prefer to do it without having to kill hundreds of thousands of innocents. It’s bad PR. (The sadistic Israeli leadership class is an exception to this, largely due to its sadistic and ridiculous Talmudic exceptionalism.)
But because host populations have this peculiar aversion to being subjugated, exploited and ripped off, the killing is an awful necessity. It’s an amoral quest for profits and power.