Yes, this is who we are: America’s 250-year history of political violence. Really!

Is the autor a nutty professor or a demagogue or both! I am afraid  a demagogue!

Among other things, this professor describes common historical, but crude practices of the 18th century as political violence. One may beg to differ!

Note this professor is apparently an Italian professor at a university in Italy, so why does he title this article "who we are?" I bet, he is a lefty (communist?) Italian professor.

The first several paragraphs are already a strange hodge podge:

"The day after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at Utah Valley University, commentators repeated a familiar refrain: “This isn’t who we are as Americans.”

Others similarly weighed in. Whoopi Goldberg [???] on “The View” declared that Americans solve political disagreements peacefully: “This is not the way we do it.”

Yet other awful episodes come immediately to mind: President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed on Nov. 22, 1963. More recently, on June 14, 2025, Melissa Hortman, speaker emerita of the Minnesota House of Representatives, was shot and killed at her home, along with her husband and their golden retriever. ..."

The circumstances of the June 2025 killing and injuring of two Minnesota Democratic Party affiliated legislators by one man on the same day, I believe, are still under investigation. Not familiar with the details, it appears the suspect also killed the husband and a dog and may have also tried to kill the wife. The suspect also appeared to an employee of the Minnesota government.

The author continues:

"... Revolutionary violence as political theater

The years of the American Revolution were incubated in violence. One abominable practice used on political adversaries was tarring and feathering. It was a punishment imported from Europe and popularized by the Sons of Liberty in the late 1760s, Colonial activists who resisted British rule.

In seaport towns such as Boston and New York, mobs stripped political enemies, usually suspected loyalists – supporters of British rule – or officials representing the king, smeared them with hot tar, rolled them in feathers, and paraded them through the streets. ..."

Caveat: I did not read the whole article.

Yes, this is who we are: America’s 250-year history of political violence

Maurizio Valsania, Professor of American History, Università di Torino