A sign of a dangerous new normal: Americans are getting numb to political violence

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

62% : Google searches have surged after each event of violence -- an indicator of the spike in public interest in the news topic -- but quickly returned to normal levels.
50% : The Giffords attack has continued to get interest online after mass shootings and other incidents of political violence, POLITICO's review found.
49% : And while definitions of political violence vary, it's clear that it has been increasing in the U.S., by any metric.
48% : It shook the nation when Trump was shot last summer; but when another would-be gunman targeted the then-candidate on a golf course a few weeks later, it was just a blip in the news cycle.
44% : Targets in recent incidents include Trump, a Supreme Court justice, multiple governors, a former speaker of the House, and state lawmakers.
43% : The news cycles for incidents of political violence this year are typically measured in a few weeks, if not just days.
42% : The drop-off in public attention matches the pattern of news coverage: A POLITICO review of newspaper articles from LexisNexis found that recent events of political violence have tended to disappear from most newspaper front pages within just a week.
40% : That does not encompass the full scope of political violence in the U.S., which has also included shootings targeting campaign offices and the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
39% : Incidents of political violence over the past decade -- such as the 2017 congressional baseball shooting that targeted Republican lawmakers including Rep. Steve Scalise, or the 2022 assault on Paul Pelosi, husband of then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- received relatively little search interest after the first rush of news.
34% : The assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk has raised new fears that the country is entering another era of political violence.

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