When the bullet flew at Charlie Kirk, it wasn’t just aimed at one man. It was the inevitable result of a culture that’s been quietly building “permission structures for violence.”

That phrase, used by commentator Ben Shapiro, perfectly describes the ideological scaffolding supporting America’s descent into political bloodshed. From transgender radicalism to Marxist street mobs, militant Islamic networks, and the foreign-tied radical Black Lives Matter movement, the modern Left has manufactured moral cover for violence – recasting hatred and assassination as “justice.”

Chicago’s new “ICE-Free Zones,” Virginia Democrats’ death threats, and media-promoted apps that help criminals hunt down federal agents all share the same DNA: a belief that conservative Americans are not political opponents, they’re enemies to be destroyed.

Shapiro’s “permission structures for violence” must be added to America’s lexicon. It aptly describes the conditions leading to political violence as it becomes more prevalent.

Shapiro uses this term to critique left-wing ideologies fostering political violence in America. He ties it to movements like transgender activism, Marxism, Islam, and Black Lives Matter. These, he claims, frame opponents as oppressors, justifying attacks. For example, calling conservatives “fascists” may incite harm. Shapiro’s 2025 column on Charlie Kirk’s assassination links such rhetoric to real threats. He urges denouncing ideologies creating these structures to curb violence.

Chicago Mayor’s ‘ICE Free Zones’

The deliberating targeting of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is an example of this phenomenon. This week, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s executive order establishing “ICE-free zones” exemplifies a select permission structures for violence by institutionalizing resistance to federal immigration enforcement.

His inflammatory rhetoric, equating conservative policies with a “rematch of the Civil War,” dehumanizes opponents and normalizes confrontational tactics by groups like Antifa. This frames such actions as righteous defense rather than unlawful interference.

Murderous Texts: Bullet Fantasies Against a GOP Rival

Virginia Democratic AG nominee Jay Jones fantasized about shooting Republican Todd Gilbert twice in the head and harming his family. His statements, revealed in leaked texts, treat murderous threats as acceptable political tactics against conservatives.

The messages portray targeted killings as legitimate means to enforce ideological change. By issuing tepid condemnations and rejecting demands to oust Jones, Democratic leaders reinforce this dynamic.

‘Know Your Enemy’

Shapiro’s “Permission structures for violence” describes a rhetorical framework that justifies violent acts. It portrays certain groups or ideas as existential threats, making violence seem righteous. This creates a psychological green light for extremists to act. Ideologies emphasizing victimhood or dehumanization often fuel such structures. Ben Shapiro argues they subtly embolden radicals by excusing or valorizing their actions.

“When politicians say, therefore, that they are against ‘political violence’ but then move to justify violence by massaging these ideologies,” Shapiro writes, “their words are useless.”

There are many examples of political assassinations that are downplayed, or even celebrated:

• The murder of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare by affluent University of Pennsylvania graduate Luigi Mangione;
• The murder of Israeli Embassy staffers Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim in Washington, D.C. by Elias Rodriguez, who said he “did it for Gaza”.
• The assassination of Charlie Kirk was widely celebrated. Some of these instances are captured here, here and here.

During his speeches to patriots across America, author and speaker Trevor Loudon often says “In order to defeat your enemy, you must know your enemy.” In his case, Loudon is referring to the militant ideologies that drive terrorism.

This blind spot in naming enemies echoes in how leaders have historically soft-pedaled ideological threats.

How George Bush and Barack Obama Separated Islam from Islamic Terrorism

George W. Bush

Shortly after September 11, 2001, George W. Bush addressed the nation at the the Islamic Center of Washington. He said in part:

“These acts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith.”

Standing over George W. Bush’s left shoulder is CAIR leader Nihad Awad, who seven years earlier explicitly stated in a 1994 speech at Barry University: “I’m in support of the Hamas movement.” It is hard to imagine a bigger slap in the face to the victims of Islamic terror.

George Bush continued:

“The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don’t represent peace. They represent evil and war.”

January 2008 Report: ‘Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims’

The Bush administration doubled down on this narrative in a report published in January 2008.

From the document:

“On May 8, 2007, Secretary [Michael] Chertoff met with a group of influential Muslim Americans to discuss ways the Department can work with their communities to protect the country, promote civic engagement, and prevent violent radicalization from taking root in the United States.”

While it is still unknown who specifically met with DHS Secretary Chertoff, a 2007 article at the San Francisco Gate titled “Security agency enlisting Muslims to rebut radicals / Idea is to engage young minds in ideological battle” gives some names:

• Shahed Amanullah, founder of the halal website Zabihah.com. He served at the U.S. Department of State under Hillary Clinton and John Kerry from 2011–2014. Amanullah recently asserted – falsely – that there is no concrete evidence linking CAIR to the Muslim Brotherhood or Hamas, attributing such claims to anti-Muslim bias.
• Akbar Ahmed, an American University professor and former ambassador from Pakistan who endorses interfaith dialogue and misrepresents the historical brutality of Islam.
• M.J. Khan, former Houston city councilman who has run for mayor as a Republican. Khan was born in Pakistan in 1950 and became an American  citizen in 1985. MJ Khan has served as Vice President of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston and President of the Pakistan American Association of Greater Houston.
• Reza Aslan, Iranian-American and hard left partisan fired from CNN in 2017 for referring to President Trump as a “piece of sh*t”. He is author of “No god but God” and a professor of religion and creative writing at the UC Riverside. He has served on the board of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC).

This report seeks to downplay the influence of Islam in Islamic terror:

“…it may be strategic to emphasize that many so-called ‘Islamic’ terrorist groups twist and exploit the tenets of Islam to justify violence and to serve their own selfish political aims.”

Instead of using “Islam” to describe Islamic terrorism, the report advises, “…senior officials might use terms such as ‘death cult,’ ‘cultlike,’ ‘sectarian cult,’ and ‘violent cultists’ to describe the ideology and methodology of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.”

Barack Obama

While George W. Bush planted the seeds of this disconnect, Barack Obama nurtured them into full bloom, reshaping U.S. counterterrorism doctrine. During the Obama administration, a significant shift occurred in U.S. counterterrorism strategies, particularly in how federal agencies like the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI approached the ideological roots of terrorism.

In response to complaints from so-called Muslim advocacy groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the administration initiated a review of training materials in 2011, leading to the purging of references to “Islam,” “jihad,” “Sharia,” and the “Muslim Brotherhood” from official documents and curricula.

Underpinning this approach was the 2011 Presidential Study Directive-11, a still-classified document outlining the Obama administration’s rationale for engaging with the Muslim Brotherhood.

The purge resulted in the removal of hundreds of pages of content deemed offensive, with DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson admitting in 2015 that officials now use only the term “violent extremism” instead of “Islamic extremism”. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf added that the “root causes” of radical Islamic terror is “the lack of opportunity and jobs…”

“We are not at war with Islam,” said Obama in the wake of the 2015 White House summit on Countering Violent Extremism (CVE). “We are at war with people who have perverted Islam.”

The late whistleblower Philip Haney, a veteran DHS officer who identified over 300 suspected terrorists, testified in June 2016 before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on “Willful Blindness: Consequences of Agency Efforts to Deemphasize Radical Islam in Combating Terrorism,” revealing how these purges erased critical intelligence.

NCTC Shields Islam While Al Qaeda Plots U.S. Attacks

Last month, commentator Laura Loomer called out a recent report from the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) under Tulsi Gabbard‘s Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). According to the report, Al Qaeda has renewed “calls for attacks” in America.

Loomer highlighted the NCTC’s failure to explicitly label Al Qaeda as an “Islamic terrorist organization,” instead referring to it and its Yemen-based affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), as “violent extremists.” She accurately argues that this omission echoes Obama-era policies that sanitized intelligence terminology to shield Islam.

NCTC Director Joe Kent swiftly responded, defending the report. He dismissed Loomer’s critique as a “false narrative” and “distraction,” noting Al Qaeda’s established status as a foreign terrorist organization. Loomer retorted that Kent couldn’t even utter “Islamic terrorism,” mocking the use of “violent extremists” as a joke that hindered defeating the enemy. “You can’t defeat your enemy if you refuse to name your enemy,” she said.

In a pointed escalation, Kent boasted that unlike Loomer, he will “do worse…than tweet”. He further suggested Loomer was “paid by the side that’s too afraid to come at me directly, but knows it’s losing,” a veiled reference to Israel.

Case Study: Anti-ICE Apps Used in the Dallas ICE Shooting

Marcos Charles, ICE Executive Associate Director for Enforcement and Removal Operations, revealed that 29-year-old Joshua Jahn used an anti-ICE app in a deadly attack on ICE’s Dallas field office. The app, celebrated by legacy media prior to the incident, makes this an excellent example of the “permission structures for violence”. In the wake of the attack, app stores removed anti-ICE apps from online platforms.

While discussing one such app glowingly, CNN journalist Claire Duffy reported that the “ICEBlock” developer claimed that deporting illegal aliens is “reminiscent of Nazi Germany”:

“‘When I saw what was happening in this country, I wanted to do something to fight back,” [developer Joshua] Aaron told CNN, adding that the deportation efforts feel, to him, reminiscent of Nazi Germany. “We’re literally watching history repeat itself.””

In response to the outrageous CNN report, ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons stated that ICEBlock “basically paints a target on federal law enforcement officers’ backs” and that “officers and agents are already facing a 500% increase in assaults.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that CNN was “encouraging violence” for its reporting on ICEBlock. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem stated that the app is an “obstruction of justice.”

MSNBC also reported on ICEBlock, where the developer claimed that the Trump administration is “purporting authoritarianism, pushing fascism and subverting the rule of law and our Constitution” (1:21 timestamp):

Similarly, CBS News reported that “[T]o do his job, Oscar relies on the app Coqui, which shows him if ICE agents are nearby.” The developer created Coqui because, he claims, his illegal alien employees were not coming to work.

These apps were easily available before the attack as shown in this search engine screenshot:

Press Conference on Dallas ICE Attack

During his press conference on Thursday, Marcos Charles stated that “violent rhetoric” (i.e. a “permission structures for violence”) “has led to over a 1,000% increase in assaults on ICE officers”. Charles highlighted that ICE officers and ATF partners “ran back into danger” to “pull detainees out of the transport van to get them to safety”.

He continues:

“They are heroes, and I hope the media has the integrity to shine a light on this story. Enough is enough with the harmful lies and violent rhetoric. It has to stop.”

Charles explained that the murderer “used ICE tracking apps” such as the ones celebrated in the legacy media. Marcos Charles did not mince words:

“Anyone who creates or distributes these apps that are designed to spot, track, and locate ICE officers is well aware of the dangers they are exposing to law enforcement. It’s a casting call to invite bad actors to attack law enforcement officers. It’s no different than giving a hitman the location of their intended target, and this is exactly what we saw happen in Dallas yesterday. The media has been amplifying these apps even as we warned them it would only lead to more attacks on law enforcement. We truly wish we didn’t have to say, ‘I told you so,’ but here we are.”

Charles continued to ask the left to tone down the “dangerous rhetoric” against ICE:

“Again, we call on those who foment violence and vilify our law enforcement officers to cease the dangerous rhetoric. We also call on law-abiding Americans everywhere to report any suspicious activity. The individual that was out there yesterday shooting at our agents and officers was trying to take the lives of law enforcement people doing their job. Instead, he killed a detainee and shot two others. That is something that’s unacceptable. The rhetoric that’s out there on social media, the rhetoric that is being said by some community leaders in other states, needs to stop. There’s been an increase in violence against ICE agents, not only in Texas and Dallas, but across the country in violent protests. Again, I ask everybody, just stop.”

ICEBlock released a statement on their website denouncing the decision to remove the ICE tracking app, saying in part: “Capitulating to an authoritarian regime is never the right move.”

Summary

Political commentator Ben Shapiro introduced the concept of a “permission structures for violence” to describe how certain ideologies, such as transgender activism, Marxism, Islam, and Black Lives Matter, create a rhetorical framework that justifies political violence by framing opponents as evil, fascist, oppressors, etc.

This psychological green light, exemplified by cases like the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the murder of CEO of UnitedHealthcare normalize and encourage political attacks.