BY: VIC MATUS Weekend... May 16 - 17, 2026 May 16 - 17, 2026 How commonplace is political violence these days? A man shooting at federal officers near the White House as JD Vance's motorcade passed by was barely mentioned in the papers. Still, the timing could not be better for Noah Rothman's new book, Blood & Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence in America. Ian Haworth returns to the Weekend Beacon with a review. https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!08jE!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F585df5c7-5130-4e9d-a042-c8cb9344a021_703x491.jpeg This is a book about the assassins, the vandals, the small-cell terrorists, and the lizard-brained mobs that mete out destruction, violence, and death in the name of political causes and in the pursuit of political outcomes,’ Rothman declares, before leading readers on a fascinating and yet phenomenally depressing tour of left-wing violence, reminding us of just how violent American life has become (again). “This journey includes the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City and the unbelievable response to an act of cold-blooded murder (such as the use of pregnant ‘buts’ by Democrats to condemn and then immediately justify violence, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, who declared, ‘You don’t kill people. It’s abhorrent. I condemn it wholeheartedly. … but…’; the nationwide explosion of violence under the banner of Black Lives Matter following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis; the establishment of an occupied autonomous zone in Seattle lauded by the New York Times as ‘a homeland for racial justice’; the attempt to assassinate Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh; the explosion of antisemitism and antisemitic violence that followed the attacks of October 7, 2023, including the firebombing of Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro’s home and the murder of a young couple outside Washington, D.C.’s Jewish Museum by an assassin who screamed ‘Free, Free Palestine’; and, of course, the multiple attempts on the life of President Donald Trump. “One particularly jarring moment in the first chapter comes not when we find that left-wing violence has become hugely prevalent in modern American life, but that we have all become—to some degree—numb to this left-wing violence. Even the most avid political enthusiast will likely have forgotten—under the weight of sheer frequency—at least one example of violence that should be once-in-a-generation, but is now more once-in-an-afternoon. Even as a conservative reader whose career focuses on the battle against antisemitism in the West—making the notion of political violence far from imaginary—I was astonished by how normal this constant onslaught of violence has become, with the ‘fiery but mostly peaceful’ riots of just a few years ago feeling more like a long-forgotten dream.”