The Radicalization Dividend

After the murder of Charlie Kirk, Donald Trump wasted no time reframing the tragedy. The real threat, he declared, wasn’t the radical right but the radical left — “smarter” and “more political.”

It’s a familiar refrain. Decades earlier, Trump famously quipped that if he ever ran for president, it would be as a Republican, since Democrats were “too smart” and Republicans would “believe whatever he says.”

His more recent confession — “smart people don’t like me” — lays bare the same logic. He knows he’s weaponizing ignorance, rallying the credulous for personal gain. It’s not just cynical politics; it’s scraping the bottom of democratic decay.

Kirk’s influence didn’t flow from nuance. It flowed from provocation. His brand was the algorithm of outrage — every speech, campus event, podcast designed not to persuade but to provoke.

And the market is growing. Pew Research finds that nearly 40% of both Republicans and Democrats now view the other side as “immoral.” Hate has become a partisan identity.

Kirk and Trump monetized that divide. Their product wasn’t policy; it was grievance. And like any addict, their audience kept demanding stronger doses.

The irony: Kirk radicalized not just the right but the left that opposed him. He didn’t build coalitions — he manufactured enemies.

In the end, those enemies caught up with him.

Here’s the uncomfortable math. Coordinated terrorist attacks are horrific, but they’re rare and interceptable. Intelligence agencies can track planning, financing, communications.

But lone wolves? Different story. The FBI reports that 69% of domestic terror incidents in 2023 were carried out by individuals acting alone.

These are almost always men, often young, usually alienated.

As Richard Reeves writes in Of Boys and Men, frustrated young men are the “raw material” of extremism. One online conspiracy, one charismatic firebrand, one grievance — and the spark becomes fire.

This is what makes our moment distinct: terrorism is no longer foreign.

It’s universal. The ideology barely matters. The profile does.

The Trump Effect: Gasoline on the Fire

When the political leader of one side uses radicalization as a campaign tool, the system becomes ungovernable.

Democrats can call for calm. But when Trump throws gasoline on the fire, their water barely matters.

Consider this: a 2024 University of Chicago survey found that 28 million Americans — one in nine adults — believe violence is justified to restore Trump to power. That’s not a fringe. That’s a demographic.

Trump understands this. His consistency isn’t about ideology — it’s about weaponizing grievance. And in a political marketplace where rage outperforms reason, that’s a winning strategy, even if it’s a losing one for democracy.

And it’s happening at the worst possible time.

AI is accelerating income inequality, alienation, and mistrust. A 2025 IMF study projects that up to 40% of jobs in advanced economies face “significant automation pressure.”

Displacement doesn’t just disrupt households — it radicalizes them.

History is blunt: mass unemployment is political lighter fluid. Weimar Germany. Post-Soviet Russia. Arab Spring. Dispossessed young men don’t stay quiet; they mobilize.

Now layer on a political class that treats radicalization as a growth strategy. You don’t just get polarization.

You get systemic fragility — a democracy where violence isn’t an outlier, it’s the equilibrium.

Can the cycle be broken? Maybe. But it requires both sides to recognize that weaponizing radicalization is mutually assured destruction.

That’s hard when one side is cashing in on chaos.

Democracies rarely collapse with a bang. They decay by exhaustion.

Institutions rot. Citizens disengage. Violence becomes normalized.

The U.S. still has guardrails — courts, civil society, a free press. But guardrails don’t matter if the driver insists on flooring the accelerator.

And right now, America is speeding into a wall.