The Structural-Demographic State of America V

Why Individual-Instigated Political Violence Dominates the Current Peak

In the previous installment of the SDSA series I noted that, although the current level of lethal political violence has exceeded the previous spike (of the late 1960s — early 1970s), it differs in the nature of violent events. The previous spike was dominated by violent riots. In the 2020s we also see an uptick in the incidence of riots, but it is dwarfed by that of the 1960s.

At the end of the previous post I asked, why? Why are violent events instigated by individuals (terrorism and assassinations) are surging, while events instigated by groups have increased much less?