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The assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk Wednesday is renewing urgent questions about political violence in America, and researchers warn it’s part of a growing trend reshaping how Americans engage with politics.People who track political violence say this week’s attack highlights a dangerous rise in hostility. The concern isn’t just about high-profile figures like Kirk, but also about what’s happening in communities across the country.“There are a lot of the elements of the attack that are particularly chilling,” said Shannon Hiller, who leads the Bridging Divides Initiative at Princeton University.Hiller said Kirk’s assassination is especially alarming because it happened on a college campus — a place many expect to be safe for free expression and debate.“We like to believe that our civic spaces, regardless of the really difficult issues we’re tackling, are a place for strong disagreement, but not for violence,” she said.Her research shows political hostility is escalating beyond isolated events. A recent study documented more than 250 cases of threats or harassment against local officials this year, a 9 percent increase from last year.“It’s actually that worry that often leads people to not run for public office again or change their day-to-day practices of how they do their job,” Hiller said. “And I think some other research has shown that there can be some of that same worry passed on to voters in different ways.”Kieran Doyle, the North American research manager at ACLED (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data), said the data points to a troubling trend."We've seen a rise in the past two years, especially incidents of political violence that are carried out by individuals who have highly idiosyncratic political beliefs that does not necessarily align with any sort of more mainstream political beliefs," Doyle said. Doyle said understanding these events isn’t easy.“In many of these instances, it’s hard to derive any comfort for being able to make sense of these incidents because they defy sense in many cases,” he said.While investigators continue piecing together the details of Kirk’s murder, Doyle cautions that it's unclear how the incident fits into the picture that prior research presents. However, he says the broader trend is clear. “The patterns that we’re seeing have not been hyper-partisan violence, but rather extremist violence that comes from all over the map and is not generally left vs. right,” he said. “This trend is really concerning because it means that violence in many cases is being carried out for violence's sake.”Still, both Doyle and Hiller stress that political violence doesn’t have to become the new normal.“It’s important for leadership to keep communities together and to remind everyone that this isn’t the way that we want things to go,” Doyle said.Hiller agreed, adding that Americans "don’t have to accept the hostile climate as the new normal or that escalation is inevitable." "It’s important, additionally, to reject public officials or those in different communities that are trying to push that narrative that this conflict is inevitable," she added. "That’s what escalates violence instead, and we shouldn’t do it.”The attack on Charlie Kirk underscores the stakes as the country heads deeper into an already polarized election season.Researchers say the coming months will test whether leaders, institutions, and communities can find ways to lower the temperature — or whether violence continues to spread into spaces once seen as safe for civic debate.