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The numbers on US political violence

America has a political violence problem, and it’s getting worse.

President Donald Trump has now faced so many assassination attempts that some people suspect they aren’t real.

The truth is less salacious, more alarming…and more straightforward. (If you wanted to stage a colossal false flag attack, would you do it under the noses of a thousand reporters?!)

Simply put, political violence is on the rise in the US. There are some caveats and asterisks to that claim, which we’ll get to in a minute — but generally speaking, across multiple sources, the trendline is consistent.

In the past year alone, one gunman assassinated the conservative activist Charlie Kirk; another shot and killed a Democratic lawmaker and her husband, and attempted to kill others, in Minnesota; and a man set fire to the home of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.

Trump himself has now survived three attacks, most recently at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner this past weekend. A California man rushed a security checkpoint armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and several knives, intending to target multiple members of the Trump administration.

In a press conference........

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