Former Visiting Fellow Steven Levitsky was quoted in an opinion piece in The New York Times about the effect of President Trump's violent rhetoric on rates of political violence in the United States. The article's author argues that Trump's continued encouragement of violence is partially responsible for the rise in white nationalist violence that has been evidenced in recent mass shootings. Levitsky said, "Violent talk can, at minimum, encourage lone-wolf violence. It can also slowly normalize political violence, turning discourse and ideas that were once unsayable and even unthinkable into things that are sayable and thinkable.”