Blood on the Altar, Fire in the Streets: How a Decade of Grievance Turned Into a Culture of Violence

When leaders license hate, the streets collect the bill.

Blood on the Altar, Fire in the Streets: How a Decade of Grievance Turned Into a Culture of Violence

When leaders license hate, the streets collect the bill.

The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #567: Sunday, September 28th, 2025.

I wrote most of this two days ago. Then, the Michigan church horror struck this morning. I’ve revised this issue to reckon with that evil…out of respect for the victims and their families.

This morning’s church massacre in Michigan wasn’t an isolated “tragedy.”

It’s a culmination. A decade of permission-giving rhetoric…grievance economics…and algorithm-fueled contempt has rewired the national nervous system.

Since 2016…the data say hate incidents rose…extremist violence metastasized…and elite messaging…especially from a President who weaponized fear…made things worse. The receipts are not subtle.

From Communion to Chaos

A gunman rammed a truck through the doors of a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc, Michigan, opened fire on the congregation, and the building burned.

One dead…at least nine wounded…the shooter killed by police.

Sunday worship became a battlefield; the altar…a triage station. Investigators don’t yet have a motive. But the image…the pews…the smoke…the sirens…is seared into the American brain.

Understand the choreography: crash…confusion…gunfire…flames…fear. In minutes, you’ve created a scene tailor-made for cable chyrons and social feeds. Governors issue statements.

A president performs “condolences.”

National figures project narratives onto still-wet blood. The facts will come later. The feelings arrive first…and feelings…for a decade now…have been trained to leap to one place: someone is to blame…and I already know who.

And that is the point. Because when a country’s leaders feed it an all-you-can-eat buffet of enemies, the public eventually goes hunting for a plate.

The Big Lie Nobody Says Out Loud: “This Is Random”

There’s nothing random about a country marinated in menace talk experiencing more menace. You can graph it.

Hate crimes remain elevated compared with the mid-2010s.

The Department of Justice/FBI tallied 11.9k incidents in 2023 and 11.7k in 2024-levels sharply above 2016. That’s not a blip…that’s a plateau on a new ledge.

Antisemitic incidents hit record levels in 2024:

Part of an almost 900% decade-long surge…according to the ADL’s annual audit. Whatever slice you watch (harassment, vandalism, assault), the curve goes up.

Extremist violence patterns:

Over the past decade…the majority of extremist-related murders have consistently been attributed to the far right…year after year…before a 2025 incident shift saw an uptick on the left from a very low base. (Shifts can happen; they don’t erase the long arc.)

Political-violence risk has persisted since 2020:

Per Princeton’s Bridging Divides: elevated intimidation and episodic violence around elections…governance…and protest. Translation: rougher weather is now “normal.”

And then there’s the uncomfortable causal question:

Does elite rhetoric move real-world harm?

A leading peer-reviewed study says yes. Counties with higher Twitter uptake saw larger spikes in anti-Muslim hate crimes after Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim tweets... using an instrumental-variables design to isolate the effect.

Not vibes…causal evidence.

Before we go further…let’s be honest and careful.

The United States is huge…and “politically motivated terrorism” is still rare relative to total murders…as even libertarian critics note.

But “rare” does not equal “insignificant,” and the trend matters: a democracy can be destabilized by targeted…symbolic violence vastly disproportionate to its share of homicides…especially when leaders launder menace into mainstream.

Now…put a pin in that. Because the last decade didn’t just elevate the numbers. It rewired the frame.

An Important Principle: What You Reward…You Get More Of

When outrage is rewarded with attention…fear is rewarded with votes…and cruelty is rewarded with virality…then the market for all three expands.

Since 2016, America’s political market rewarded:

1. Enemy construction on demand (immigrants…Muslims…protesters, “globalists,” journalists…judges).

2. Absolutist framing (“They’re not opponents, they’re traitors,” “vermin,” “invaders”).

3. Permission slips (“knock the crap out of them,” “when the looting starts…,” “full force”).

This was not a marginal sideshow; it came from the bully pulpit.

When the stage manager of national emotion decides to keep the house lights on rage… the crowd complies. The stage manager? Donald Trump…of course.

And when that same figure turns to a new term and starts labeling domestic opponents “terrorists,” you’ve moved the dial from policing to war footing. Words widen the license.

The Truths: Show Me the Receipts

My great uncle Don always said, “Don’t preach…prove.” Here’s the spine of the case.

1) The Hate Crime Plateau

FBI/DOJ’s hate-crime totals in 2023–24 sit thousands above 2016 levels. Analysts can argue about methodology…but the directional story is stubborn: elevated.

That matters because hate crimes are bellwethers. They tell you where stigma is being converted into strikes.

2) Antisemitism’s Record Run

The ADL’s 2024 audit logged the highest level of incidents in nearly half a century… concluding a near-ten-fold surge over a decade. Political leaders who minimize or “both-sides” this are either catastrophically uninformed or catastrophically cynical.

3) Extremist Violence Wasn’t Symmetric

Across most of the decade…far-right extremists committed the majority of extremist killings.

2025’s incident mix shows a rise in left-wing attacks from a low base and a simultaneous right-wing dip, but that does not erase the prior pattern.

It actually reinforces the core point: elite permission changes behavior…on every side. When leaders rebrand opposition as “terror,” escalation is predictable.

4) The Causal Link, Not the Correlation

The American Economic Association study: Trump’s anti-Muslim tweets → measurable bumps in anti-Muslim hate crimes in high-Twitter-use counties.

Social media didn’t invent hate; it amplified it on command. That is a structural risk when the command comes from the Oval Office.

5) The Risk Climate

Bridging Divides (Princeton) and similar monitors document persistent elevated risks of political violence and intimidation since 2020…tied to election cycles… misinformation surges…and leader-driven narratives. The storm didn’t pass…we moved into it.

None of this proves that a given shooter acted because of a given speech.

That’s not how stochastic violence works. What it proves is that if you pump a nation with demonstrably inflammatory elite messaging long enough…the probability distribution of attacks shifts…the tails get fatter.

And on some Sunday morning in America…a sanctuary…becomes a crime scene.

The Hidden Mechanism

Here’s the mechanism that sells hate like a breakthrough cream:

1. Define a dire…urgent enemy (the villain).

2. Tell a story where the customer is the hero besieged by that enemy.

3. Offer the only “solution” (Trump and his movement).

4. Add a deadline (the invasion is now; the election is stolen; the cities are on fire).

5. Remove the brakes (“I’ll pay your legal fees,” “full force,” “domestic terrorists”).

Run that loop for ten years…and you get a nation trained to see the neighbor as the knife.

You take millions of people with ordinary frustrations…bills…status anxiety…a flattening life…and you give them a myth that converts suffering into license.

That myth isn’t free.

The invoice arrives as bomb threats to synagogues…assaults on Sikhs mistaken for Muslims…arsons at mosques…attacks at drag events…brawls at school boards…death threats to election officials…and yes…Sunday morning gunfire in a church.

“But Violence Is Down/It’s the Left Now/Whatabout…”

Let’s handle the pushback like adults.

“Politically motivated murders are a tiny share of all murders.”

True…and irrelevant to the thesis. Political violence’s impact is disproportionate because it targets democratic processes…minorities…and symbolic spaces. It chills participation. It changes policy. It metastasizes fear.

“2025 shows more left-wing incidents.”

Yes…per CSIS/Axios…left-wing attacks hit a 30-year high in early 2025 while right-wing incidents dipped. That’s useful context and a warning that escalation begets escalation. It does not absolve the last decade’s imbalance nor the role of leadership in shaping the climate.

“Correlation isn’t causation.”

That’s why the AEA study matters: it’s causal. And it’s not alone…there’s a growing literature on elite cueing and stochastic terrorism. We cannot keep pretending that megaphones don’t matter.

Bottom line:

If you reward dehumanization at the top…you get dehumanization at the bottom. If you brand dissent as “terror,” you will eventually get a war…against your own people.

The Ten-Year Playbook: How We Got Here

2015–2016:

A campaign built on menace marketing…Muslim ban…Mexican “rapists,” “knock the crap out of them”…discovers that cable news pays in free airtime every time you light the fuse.

2017–2019:

Charlottesville…family separations…a thousand dog whistles. The online outrage economy hums; new audiences are trained to confuse cruelty with courage.

2020–2021:

“Stand back and stand by.” Election delegitimization. January 6. Permission reaches its apex; the world watches a nation try to strangle its own vote.

2022–2024:

Elevated hate-crime numbers persist. Antisemitic incidents climb to records. The narrative machine keeps inventing new enemies. Data monitors flag ongoing risks.

2025:

A sitting President designates “antifa” as a domestic terrorist organization…lacking a legal framework but rich in political theater.

Days later, he authorizes “full force” for troops in Portland “to protect ICE.” The ambition is unmistakable: turn rhetoric into legal posture…legal posture into deployments…and deployments into precedent.

You don’t need a conspiracy board. You need a calendar and a memory.

Why the Church Matters

Why does a sanctuary strike so hard?

Because it collapses the distance between sacred and secular violence. It says: there is no off-limits anymore.

Schools…synagogues…mosques…churches…supermarkets…America’s map of vulnerability keeps expanding. Every attack becomes a political Rorschach…a permission slip for the next escalation.

We don’t know yet what motivated the Michigan shooter. We do know the climate he lived in.

We know what our leaders praised…excused…retweeted…and winked at. We know how the algorithm delivered him a buffet of enemies. We know that a country taught to see fellow citizens as an infestation will eventually start hiring exterminators.

The Part You Don’t Want to Read (But Must): How Leadership Cues Violence

Call it “stochastic terrorism,” call it “elite cueing,” call it “permission loops.” The mechanism is simple:

1. Dehumanize a target (“vermin,” “animals,” “invasion”).

2. Predict a catastrophe if the target survives (“they will replace you,” “they will destroy the country”).

3. Frame violent control as moral necessity (“full force,” “take the gloves off”).

4. Give the faithful a story where they are patriots, and the law is the technicality standing between them and salvation.

5. Plausible deniability when the inevitable happens (“lone wolf,” “mentally ill,” “nothing to do with me”).

This is a repeatable system. It doesn’t aim every bullet. It tilts the table so that gravity does the rest.

And we can measure the tilt.

The AEA paper measured it for anti-Muslim hate crimes. The FBI’s annuals measure it in incident totals. The ADL measures it in antisemitic harassment, vandalism, and assaults. Princeton BDI measures it in political intimidation and event risks. Take off the partisan glasses and read the dials.

The Fix Is Boring—and That’s Why It Works

If you’ve read me for a while…you know I don’t end with despair.

1) Stop the Permission at the Top

• Censure and consequences for officials who label domestic opponents as “terrorists” without statutory basis. Make it career-expensive to launder war language into civic life. (This includes both parties. The rule is content-neutral: you call citizens “terrorists,” you pay.)

• Media discipline: No more airing incendiary live feeds without delay and context. Outrage is fentanyl for ratings…and bodies are the cost.

2) Raise the Friction for Threats

• Mandatory threat-assessment lanes at state AG offices for public officials…judges…election workers…clergy. It’s not “paranoia.” It’s triage for democracy’s front desk.

• Hardened reporting pipelines so that school boards…synagogues…mosques… churches…and local councils escalate threats fast…and the public sees consequences fast.

3) Refuse the False Equivalence

• Update how data are reported: separate incident counts from lethality and report clarity about ideology. When left-wing attacks spike…say it. When right-wing lethality dominates…say it. Voters can handle two truths at once.

4) Cut the Algorithmic Fuel

• Platforms must down-rank dehumanizing…call-to-violence language from verified accounts the way they down-rank spam. If you can silence porn bots…you can throttle stochastic terror. The AEA paper shows the channel matters; fix the channel.

5) Rebuild Local Trust Muscle

• Fund community protection compacts: synagogues–mosques–churches–gurdwaras training together with local police for weekends like today. Shared drills….shared intel…shared standing orders about de-escalation and media protocols. When communities present a united front…the “enemy” frame breaks.

6) Harden the Vote

• Criminal penalties for armed presence near polling places (beyond sworn officers attached to the precinct).

• Public lists of election-worker threats and prosecutions. Sunlight is a disinfectant and a deterrent.

7) Teach the Antidote

• Civics is not kumbaya. Civics is a vaccine against elite demagogues. Mandate curriculum units on dehumanization…propaganda recognition…and how to report threats. We’ve taught kids to identify phishing emails. Teach them to identify weaponized language.

What You Can Do by Tuesday (Yes, You)

Call your reps (one minute):

“I’m a constituent in [ZIP]. Will you support penalties for labeling political opponents ‘terrorists’ absent criminal findings, and will you back state-level protections for election workers, clergy, and school boards? Email me your position.”

Two letters to the editor this week (120–150 words):

One on protecting faith communities without militarizing public life…one on specific local steps to harden election safety.

Adopt a local institution (your church, mosque, synagogue, gurdwara, or a school):

Document their threat reporting path and ask what’s missing. Publish the answers.

Data share:

Post the FBI/ADL/BDI links with a 3-sentence summary. Don’t argue; inform. People move when they see trendlines.

Platform hygiene:

Unfollow accounts that dehumanize. Report posts that call for violence. The attention economy is a thermostat; dial it down.

If you’re elderly…disabled…or low-energy…you’re not benched. You’re the force multiplier: voicemails get tallied; LTEs get printed; small-town editors publish faster than national outlets. Five minutes here…ten minutes there. The boring work is the effective work.

The Offer You Can’t Refuse

Here’s my promise: You don’t have to live in a country where Sunday morning is Russian roulette.

You can live in a country where leaders are punished for pouring gasoline…where the algorithm doesn’t profit from the match, where the word “terrorist” is reserved for criminals…not neighbors.

Here’s the method:

Enforce consequences at the top…reduce fuel in the middle…and flood the bottom with civic competence. It’s not sexy. It’s better…it works.

One More Time

We started with a church on fire. We end with a simple…brutal truth:

Violence is a story before it is an act. Change the storytellers…and you change the ending.

For ten years…the loudest voice in American politics taught millions to love a story where their neighbors were enemies…where cruelty was strength…where “full force” became a sacrament.

The data say that story spilled into the streets…into synagogues and supermarkets… into mosques and schools…into Capitol corridors and Sunday pews.

We can write a different story. But we can’t do it whispering.

Here We Are

A decade of leader-level dehumanization…grievance marketing…and performative menace correlates with….and in key domains causes more hate…more threats…more violence. The data do not flinch. The church doors in Michigan did.

Back soon.

-Jack

Sources & Further Reading (for your own due diligence)

• Michigan church attack (developing): Reuters, AP, LA Times, ABC reporting on Grand Blanc LDS shooting (1 dead, 9 injured; fire; suspect killed). ABC News+3Reuters+3AP News+3

• Hate-crime totals: DOJ/FBI tables (2023–2024 incident counts). Department of Justice

• ADL antisemitic incidents: 2024 record levels; decade-scale surge. Axios

• Political-violence risk: Princeton Bridging Divides special report. Bridging Divides Initiative+1

• Ideology mix & 2025 shift: CSIS analysis; Axios summary on left-wing incidents rising from low base. CSIS+1

• Causal link (elite rhetoric → hate crimes): “From Hashtag to Hate Crime,” American Economic Journal: Applied. American Economic Association

• Context on rarity vs. impact: Cato Institute blog post on terrorist-motive homicides share. Cato Institute

• Antifa designation & “full force” posture: reporting on the designation and the escalation frame. The Guardian