‘Assassination Culture’: Poll Shows About Half Of Liberals Believe Killing Trump, Musk Justified

A new survey finds an “assassination culture” growing on the American left since the attempted killing of President Donald Trump in July 2024.

Data released Monday from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) found “48% and 55%” of “left of center” people “at least somewhat justifying murder for Elon Musk and President Trump, respectively.” The findings come after a historically violent election season in 2024, which saw two assassination attempts on Trump in July and September.

“These attitudes are not fringe—they reflect an emergent assassination culture, grounded in far-left authoritarianism and increasingly normalized in digital discourse,” the NCRI wrote. The group produced its study with the Rutgers University Social Perception Lab and surveyed 1264 U.S. citizens about their attitudes toward political violence.

Rutgers study reveals assassination culture.

Among Americans identifying themselves as left-of-center:

48.6% say that murdering Elon Musk is justified.

55.2% say that murdering President Trump is justified.https://t.co/k5UORBLY0y pic.twitter.com/REETGOnNfZ

— J Michael Waller (@JMichaelWaller) April 8, 2025

When surveying all respondents, only 38% said killing Trump would be “at least somewhat justified,” meaning there was “significantly higher justification” among self-identified liberals specifically, the NCRI said.

The group also found that 39% of U.S. residents think “it is at least somewhat acceptable (or more) to destroy a Tesla dealership in protest” of Musk, who now leads Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) but is also Tesla’s CEO. (RELATED: Tesla Vandals Keep Running Into The Same Problem … Cameras)

The NCRI’s work adds to other data from July by United Kingdom-based researcher Eric Kaufman showing that a third of Democrats say they wish the first attempt on Trump’s life had succeeded in killing him. The first known assassination attempt against Trump nearly killed the president at a Pennsylvania campaign rally as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks shot him in the ear, barely missing his head, and killed an attendee.

The NCRI said online platforms such as BlueSky “play a strong predictive role in amplifying” the culture of violence on the left. “In these ecosystems, violence is not just justified — it is stylized, gamified, and embedded within a broader ideological narrative,” the organization said.

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