The body count remains modest by historical standards; a Democratic legislator here, an abortion provider there. Not quite yet Italy’s Anni di Piombo, those Years of Lead when ideological warfare and near civil-war conditions left hundreds dead. Yet, a not dissimilar infrastructure is emerging, featuring kill lists circulating through encrypted channels, self-styled constitutional militias casing state capitols and pastors offering prayers with implicit crosshairs.
In Minnesota, Vance Boelter, self-appointed “Dr. Vance Boelter,” with fraudulent credentials from the Christ for the Nations Institute, embodies this new terror paradigm. Using a fake police SUV and a carefully curated kill list mingling political targets with abortion providers – he gunned down Democratic lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband. Officials say Melissa Hortman and John Hoffman were targeted because they were public servants. Their spouses, Marc Hortman and Yvette Hoffman, were targeted too, with Hoffman shielding her daughter with her body from the bullets of the assailant in an act of extreme self-sacrifice and courage. In the tragedy of this event, solace can be gained from the fact that they survived this harrowing ordeal.
How can we make sense of this clear-cut politically motivated assassination? America’s nascent Years of Lead operates under different mechanics than traditional terrorism. The violent acts emerge not from well-defined ideological factions but from an ecosystem of stochastic terrorism. Its characteristics are unpredictable, non-linear violence propelled by radicalization without coherent ideological structures. Radical ideas circulate through mainstream institutions: megachurches, Bible colleges, and online platforms. Boelter’s theology of “violent prayer” was not secretive or underground; it was openly taught at Christ for the Nations Institute in Dallas, where students learn daily that the unsaved, their neighbours, communities, cultural institutions and more are all spiritual enemies in literal warfare.
Our previous framework of liminal terror and violence is instructive here. It describes actors like Boelter not as isolated extremists but as liminal agents – radicalized individuals who occupy an interstitial ideological space, shaped by fragmented online subcultures, conspiracy theories, and institutionalized extremism. Boelter, whose ideological profile combined evangelical zealotry, anti-abortion militancy, and conspiratorial paranoia, fits this model precisely.
This marks a profound shift from previous eras of ideological violence. Italy’s Years of Lead featured clearly delineated groups, ranging from the Red Brigades to neo-fascist militants, with each attack serving as a violent communiqué. American stochastic terror, however, emerges from seemingly disparate ideological fragments. Rather than radical vanguardist Marxism, or the hold-outs of Italian Fascism, we see instead QAnon conspiracies, Seven Mountains Dominionism, and aggressive anti-abortion activism. These movements are always, in friction, coalescing unpredictably within individuals who act without centralized direction. Traditional ideologies and architectures of political violence break down, leaving in their stead a diffuse language of political violence that is much more fringe and disaggregated in nature.
Gordon Lindsay founded Christ for the Nations with a theology born from the racist and conspiratorial currents of British Israelism. Today, his institution has produced figures like the “Apostle” Dutch Sheets, whose Millenarian prophecies fuelled the January 6th insurrectionists. The transformation of spiritual metaphors into violent action has been gradual but deliberate, facilitated by a media landscape and institutional network that turns metaphoric warfare into real-world violence. Such actors see themselves as eternal revolutionaries in a fundamentalist movement known as the ‘New Apostolic Reformation‘. For them, America is anointed by God to convert the world to Christianity – by force if necessary – and to that end all can be permitted in order to accelerate Jesus’ return and rule over the Earth. This divine mission, as they see it, will be carried out when true believers seize control of the institutions of the U.S. government.
Boelter exemplifies this progression and phenomena perfectly. Initially a missionary, later head of “Praetorian Guard” security services, he compiled kill lists blending political and medical targets. His 2022 sermon quoted Galatians on “self-control”; by 2025, self-control meant disciplined violence, justified by the phrase, “against such things there is no law.” Stochastic terrorism thrives on precisely this ideological fluidity, as it is disconnected from structured commands but intimately tied to legitimizing institutions, such as those in the US Government..
An example of this can be seen as regards the financing structures of American Christian nationalism, which diverge notably from traditional terrorist funding. Rather than clandestine support, money flows through legal channels: tax-exempt institutions, political action committees, and multimillion-dollar media enterprises. The terror is both mainstream yet underground, revolutionary yet institutional. In always exists in these binary spaces at once, producing figures who exist perpetually at the threshold of violence. Boelter and similar figures are not aberrations but inevitable outcomes of this system. They inhabit a world of ‘stigmatized knowledge’, as sociologist Michael Barkun terms it, which creates in-group identities through rejection of mainstream society.
Violence thus emerges unpredictably but systematically from this broader ideological environment. Boelter was never truly alone. Rather, he was always swimming within a sea of radical preparation. Institutions like Christ for the Nations foster these conditions openly, portraying fellow citizens as existential threats. Such environments are fertile ground for stochastic violence.
The recent acceleration toward violence stems partly from Christian nationalists’ realization that despite their institutional strength in the Supreme Court, their broad electoral power and their powerful media reach, they are losing the cultural battle. America continues becoming more secular and diverse, challenging their worldview. As in Italy, when electoral politics fails to achieve revolutionary goals, extremists increasingly regard democracy itself as the obstacle. But the violence shaping America’s current political landscape cannot be attributed solely to anxieties of cultural displacement; such an explanation simplifies deeper complexities. Instead, it stems from a more troubling source: a profound disillusionment and political alienation intensified by decades of declining institutional legitimacy and partisan paralysis. Christian nationalist extremism, therefore, is not purely reactionary, for it has a distinctly apocalyptic character, driven by a perceived necessity to disrupt an unacceptable status quo and confront what adherents view as an irreparable moral decline.
This extremism isn’t simply one-directional, or somehow the fault of purely those Christian Nationalist organisation who have thrown their support behind the Republican Party and President Donald Trump in a fraying domestic political environment. Rather, it has been able to grow in part because the Democratic opposition has struggled to present a unified and effective response. Fragmented in approach, inconsistent in messaging and unable to differentiate themselves as a necessary lever in the balance of power due to an obsession with proceduralism and managerialism, Democrats have inadvertently allowed space for extremist narratives to flourish. Radicalized individuals do not merely consider themselves victims of cultural marginalization but view their actions through the lens of a deeper, existential conflict, lending a profound significance to their acts of violence.
Thus, the new wave of political violence in America is characterized by a clear ideological purpose. It manifests as a symbolic confrontation, driven by narratives that frame violence as morally justified, even necessary. Such violence does not arise solely from perceived cultural defeat but from a perceived absence of credible political leadership, leaving an opening for extremist rhetoric to dominate public discourse.
Preventing America’s descent into its own Years of Lead requires confronting the roots of ideological radicalization, acknowledging institutions that mainstream violence, and recognizing stochastic terrorism as a structural problem, not just individual criminality. Italy’s crisis ended through robust policing, political reform, and societal exhaustion with violence. America faces different challenges, including deeply embedded extremism within legitimate, mainstream institutions.
Ultimately, we must understand stochastic terrorism as not merely random or isolated acts but as symptoms of a systemic legitimacy crisis. To prevent widespread violence, we must address institutional complicity in radicalization, reject the literalization of spiritual warfare, and challenge the theological foundations that transform metaphor into massacre. When “violent prayer” becomes institutional curriculum, we have moved beyond normal politics into pre-civil-war conditions. Recognizing this is the first step to avoiding our own Years of Lead.
By Etienne Darcas, Media and Terror Team Lead, Rise to Peace