By James Williamson, law graduate and essayist – Eurasia Business News, September 13, 2025. Article no 1782
The shooting of Charlie Kirk reveals deep and troubling fractures in American democracy characterized by escalating political violence, polarization, and a climate of fear. It also holds significance about the state of Western democracy.
In the week before he was killed by a far-left activist named Tyler Robinson, during a public event at Utah Valley University on September 10, Charlie Kirk posted frequently on social media, hosted events across the globe and appeared on podcasts and television. It was to be a typical week for Kirk, who made a name for himself by offering a conservative, and sometimes provocative, perspective over the airwaves, online and on college campuses about freedom, Christianism and Western civilization. His shooting on September 11 reveals many things about the state of American democracy in 2025 and political violence in modern West.
Political Violence and Polarization
Charlie Kirk, a prominent American conservative activist and supporter of President Donald Trump, was fatally shot during a public event, highlighting the rise in politically motivated violence in the U.S. His assassination is not an isolated case but part of a growing pattern of attacks against public figures across the U.S. political spectrum, including politicians and activists from both major parties. On July 13, 2024, in Pennsylvania, candidate Donald Trump was shot and wounded by Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was ultimately killed by the Secret Service. This was the first attempt of assassination against Trump in 2024, followed on September 15 when a man named Ryan Wesley Routh was spotted hiding in shrubbery at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach while Trump was golfing.
This escalation of violence over the recent years reflects a dangerous trend where political disagreements increasingly manifest in hostile and violent acts, fostering a culture of fear, retaliation, and extremism. Far-left activism and violence against those who don’t share their ideology and doctrine is a serious problem for the West, amid geopolitical tensions and revisionism with China and Russia. The U.S. democracy and European democracies don’t need internal political violence now if ever any state could need it.
When I was a law student at university, our professor of Ancient political history taught us that Rome became a powerful Senatorial Republic then Empire because political violence of the civil war could be sent towards conquest, building and administration of cities, prevailing of law over power. The famous adage “Cedant arma togae” illustrated this framing of violence by law. Even the Roman Emperors, while holding supreme power, faced certain legal and constitutional restrictions. Though they were autocrats, some limitations were imposed as conditions or capitulations at the time of election or acclamation as Emperor. These could include promises to uphold specific decrees, maintain justice, and rule mildly, restraining some absolute exercise of power. Despite being above the law in theory, emperors were expected to conform their actions to Roman law principles. They could create or modify laws but were morally bound to uphold the existing legal system, including traditions from Republican Rome. The emperor’s power was intertwined with Senate approval, and institutional forms from the Republic persisted as a constitutional framework, limiting arbitrariness to some extent.
This balance of power in Ancient Rome was real and showed how restraining violence between political actors is crucial for the stability and the prosperity of any state based on legal principles and elected bodies. When political violence leads to threats, harms and killing of political opponents, your nation is in chaos and weakness. No good comes from this.
Impact on Democracy
The politically motivated murder of Charlie Kirk on September 10 and similar incidents raise serious concerns about the safety of public discourse and the functionality of U.S. democracy. Increasing political violence is underpinned by extreme polarization amplified by social media, frauds in elections, unsolved social and economic problems and the existence of untolerant ideologies. This context intensifies emotional and ideological divides, making political compromise and respectful debate harder to achieve in the Western democracies. The climate of hostility can discourage participation and foster distrust in democratic institutions, potentially undermining democratic stability. We can already see this in Europe, in a country like France, where more and more citizens don’t believe anymore in the usefulness of elections and think that reforms are impossible. Too many obstacles would block the democratic process and violence and threats from extremists activists dissuades them from political engagement. Thus they choose safety over political involvement and exposure. As result, many clever, qualified and honest citizens that could contribute to their community choose to not deal with French politics. It gives the way to less competent and clever candidates and fuels far-left populism, very active in France.
The problem is that it has become a commonplace across the American left — including the center-left — to compare Trump, Trump voters and Republicans generally to Hitler, Nazis and fascists. That is a serious problem for democracy. No dialogue is possible after such accusation. In addition, they couldn’t more mistake, since America in 2025 is far from the Europe of the 1930’s. Socialist and communists have the freedom of speech and expression in the U.S., that was not the case in Germany or Italy in the 1930’s. Opponents are not jailed or tortured by the federal state, like it was on massive scale in Nazi Germany. However, isolated activists from the American left use violence against what they call “figures spreading hate”.
The political climate of extreme polarization, mutual demonization, and the normalization of violent rhetoric has created an environment where political violence can occur any time. We need to fix this threat and eliminate this political violence, if we want to keep Western legal democracy alive.
Societal Reflection and Future Outlook
Leaders and citizens alike express anxiety and uncertainty about the future of American democracy, with some fearing that political violence could spiral further into cycles of revenge and retaliation. Experts warn that political assassinations historically tend to come in waves, lending a dangerous legitimacy to violence as a form of political expression. Despite calls for reduced aggressive rhetoric and enhanced security, incidents like Kirk’s shooting illustrate how divided and volatile the current environment is. The challenge remains whether society can heal divisions and restore civility without exacerbating the cycle of violence.
Charlie Kirk’s shooting symbolizes a critical moment exposing the fragility of American democracy amid rising political violence and polarization, underscoring urgent needs for dialogue, security reforms, and a recommitment to democratic norms and civility. The death of Charlie Kirk is also a warning for European democracies, which are facing growing and deep political divisions amid citizens. The U.S. and the Western democracies have a rich political history, where their citizens can found all the reasons they need to understand how fragile social and political peace is and how we must keep democracy peaceful and rules based to avoid chaos and atrocities of civil war, that Europe had known well amid the past centuries.
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© Copyright 2025 – Eurasia Business News. Article no. 1782
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