The secret of the political killer

In political events, an assassination is more like a natural disaster than a controlled explosion: it will wreak havoc and often change the course of history, but its perpetrators can never know in which direction. When Gavrilo Princip shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, his goal was South Slavic independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire; What he got was World War I and the slaughter of millions. On the other hand, in 1995, when a right-wing extremist assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, at a rally in support of the Oslo peace accords, he could be said to have achieved precisely what he intended: the permanent destruction of the peace process. For this reason, Rabin’s killing is sometimes called the “most successful” assassination in modern history.

These two actions appear to be vastly different. But if you follow the approach of historian Simon Bull in his book Death to the Regime: The Modern History of Assassinations, you will find that they share a basic set of characteristics. “Before 1914, assassination was the preserve of disaffected individuals, courtly conspirators, or small groups of fanatics in pursuit of lost causes,” Ball writes. Princip established a new paradigm: even if the outcome of the assassination was chaotic, the intention behind it generally was not. The killer has become a rational figure, precise in his targeting, clear in his motives, and, most importantly, often part of a broader movement or conspiracy to overthrow those in power. Although we usually hear about Princip alone, he worked alongside a seven-man hit squad, linked to a much larger secret network. The man who shot Rabin belonged to an emerging movement whose followers included Itamar Ben Gvir, the politician who threatened Rabin on live television shortly before his assassination, and who is now Israel’s Minister of National Security.

Historically, Bull points out, “the immediate consequences of assassination almost always disappointed the killers.” Rabin’s killing was one exception. Another moment may have been in 1942, when British special agents and Czech resistance fighters worked in concert to kill Reinhard Heydrich, the brutal Nazi leader and one of the principal authors of the Final Solution. The reason was certainly clear, and Heydrich’s murder became a “paradigm of honorable assassination carried out by good democrats,” Paul wrote. But other consequences were horrific: the Nazis went to a village called Lidice, which had once housed a British radio operator, killed all the men, sent all the women to a concentration camp, handed over the “Aryan” children to German families to raise, but slaughtered the rest. “An artistic success, an operational disaster,” Paul sums up.

Dying for the Order is a dense, detailed and sometimes dry read, unlikely to set conspiracy theorists (or anyone else) in a blood race, but its international scope and meticulous documentation are instructive. Most importantly, it does not neglect state-sponsored assassination plots, especially those orchestrated by the CIA during the Cold War. Paul manages to look mockingly horrified as he quotes the contents of the CIA’s Assassination Manual: Although murder cannot be justified, the manual advises, “the killing of a political leader whose flourishing career poses a clear and present danger to the cause of liberty may be necessary,” which means that “persons of moral sensibility should not attempt” assassination. For those who have gotten past their fears, the booklet recommends the “most efficient” method: dropping someone at least seventy-five feet “onto a hard surface.” Pistols are not recommended, but the guide does accept rifles, which in the 21st century have become a popular and preferred weapon.

What do the killers want now? It’s a case-by-case question, but one worth asking, not least because political violence appears to be on the rise in the United States. Recent notable examples include two attempts on Donald Trump’s life, one of which struck him as he spoke at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in 2024; the attempt to burn down the home of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro in April, while he and his family were sleeping inside; the killing of Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, in June; and the killing of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk in September. Two weeks after Kirk’s murder, a man shot someone Ice facility in Dallas, which killed not only the officers who were its stated targets, but two detainees; According to his parents, he has recently become very afraid of getting radiation sickness.

A quick assessment of these events suggests that the Principe era is over. We have returned to the age of conspirators and disaffected fanatics—lonely and often lonely men (many things have changed, but the vast majority of killers are still men), whose clouded motives seem patched together by personal grievances, mental illness, and selfish online pursuits. Thomas Matthew Crooks, the twenty-year-old who tried to kill Trump in Pennsylvania, was a registered Republican with mixed loyalties, and he appears to have been choosing… between Several high-profile targets, including Joe Biden and Trump, in the months leading up to the event. We don’t yet know what Tyler James Robinson, the 22-year-old man accused of shooting Charlie Kirk, was hoping to accomplish. (Robinson entered no plea.) The prosecutor in that case, Jeff Gray, painted a scenario in which Robinson, who grew up in a Republican household, had recently moved to the left and become, as his mother told police, “more pro-LGBT rights.” According to Gray, Robinson’s roommate and romantic partner was transgender. In a text message exchange after Kirk was shot, his roommate asked Robinson why he did it. “I’ve had enough of hating him,” Robinson replied. “Some hate can’t be negotiated.” Whatever Robinson thought might happen, the short-term consequences of Kirk’s murder included federal and local crackdowns on free speech, and the increasing visibility of white supremacist Nick Fuentes, who is trying to fill the void left by Kirk. As a potential act of solidarity with trans people, if so, Kirk’s assassination left Robinson’s roommate, and arguably trans people in general, more vulnerable, not less.

In the past, political violence in the United States was more likely to be carried out by groups – the left-wing Weather Underground during the 1970s; Right-wing militias and anti-abortion movements of the 1980s and 1990s. Now it is more often committed by individuals not affiliated with any organization. As Rachel Kleinfeld, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has written, there is a “deeper trend: the ‘deconstruction’ of political violence as people self-radicalize through online engagement.” The Antifa movement that Trump always invokes as an all-purpose bogeyman – a deadly, disciplined secret network akin to the Irish Republican Army – does not exist. Instead, we have individuals whose ambiguous, ad hoc gestures rarely fit into a recognizable campaign. Even when they leave a message of some kind — partial data, a series of social media posts, or words etched on bullet casings — clarity is elusive. We are left to examine the ghostly traces of ideas that will never coalesce into an ideology. Speaking about Trump’s shooting, Katherine Keneally, a threat assessment expert, told The New York Times times“This type of incident, where we can’t figure out why they’re doing it, is becoming more common.”