The Only Kind of “Political Violence” All U.S. Politicians Oppose
The Only Kind of “Political Violence” All U.S. Politicians Oppose
The Trump rally shooting in Pennsylvania reveals a bipartisan consensus about what constitutes political violence — and who should wield it.
A BIPARTISAN SAMPLING of the world’s greatest perpetrators and enablers of political violence has rushed to condemn political violence following the shooting attempt on former President Donald Trump on Saturday.
“The idea that there’s political violence … in America like this, is just unheard of, it’s just not appropriate,” said President Joe Biden, the backer of Israel’s genocidal war against Palestine, with a death toll that researchers believe could reach 186,000 Palestinians. Biden’s narrower point was correct, though: Deadly attacks on the American ruling class are vanishingly rare these days. Political violence that is not “like this” — the political violence of organized abandonment, poverty, militarized borders, police brutality, incarceration, and deportation — is commonplace.
And condemn it, most everyone in the Democratic political establishment has: “Political violence is absolutely unacceptable,” wrote Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on X. “There is absolutely no place for political violence in our democracy,” tweeted former President Barack Obama, who oversaw war efforts and military strikes against Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan with massive civilian death tolls; Obama added that we should “use this moment to recommit ourselves to civility and respect in our politics.” “There is no place for political violence, including the horrific incident we just witnessed in Pennsylvania,” wrote Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
The chorus of condemnation was predictable and not in itself a problem: There’s nothing wrong with desiring a world without stochastic assassination attempts, even against political opponents. But when you have Israel’s minister of foreign affairs, Israel Katz of the fascistic ruling Likud Party, tweeting, “Violence can never ever be part of politics,” the very concept of “political violence” is evacuated of meaning.
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If you say the monopoly on violence is the issue with the US’s police violence issue what you’re saying isn’t that the police should be controlled better in their deployment of force, you’re saying that individuals should be able to shoot back at the police or, in fact, at anybody else they don’t like.
I'm saying in theory the monopoly of violence is given mandate through elections, and in the US those winning elections do not always do so by being the most popular. It's an issue that goes higher than the police as the monopoly is transferred to those without an actual majority of support. The President is commander in chief of the executive branch, that includes the cops. The problems are coming from the top down. It's considerably different than any of the other countries you mentioned.
You're talking about democratic legitimacy, not about the monopoly on violence. Non democratic countries also have a monopoly on violence for the state, it has nothing to do with the legitimacy of the state to represent the will of the People.
If your argument is that the current electoral or political system in the US lacks legitimacy because it's not representative enough I can agree with that. But the monopoly on violence by the state is the same with or without that issue, and the lack of legitimacy doesn't change the fact that you don't want random people being allowed to resolve their grievances violently.
The use of violence against citizens in America remains an high outlier compred to more than most developed free countries. This isn't simply a legatimacy of government issue, it's also a use of violence issue. Why does it have to be one or the other?
Because nobody wants the government to stop being the only one who is allowed to deploy violence. So the monopoly on violence is not in question.
The solution to the government abusing its monopoly on violence is accountability and regulation, not to remove the monopoly and allow people to just shoot each other freely.
I didn't bring up legitimacy, by the way, you were the one to claim that the government doesn't have enough support from the majority. That is an unrelated issue, as far as I'm concerned.
I already adressed why legitimacy is an issue above.
I'm saying in theory the monopoly of violence is given mandate through elections, and in the US those winning elections do not always do so by being the most popular.
If it's not given popular mandate it's just another form of war. Again the whole point of this is to use the monopoly of violence as a lens. Thats how I started the whollllle comment chain. You seem to think that means I want it abolished, which no one's said this whole conversation.
No, it's not "another form of war". Plenty of illiberal countries have a strong monopoly on violence and nobody conceptualizes that as them being at war with their population. That's absurd.
Making grandiose declarations doesn't make them make sense. I wish people took an extra breath to check what they are actually saying when they post.
Also, if you're not saying you want to abolish the monopoly on violence by the state what are you saying? Because that's the thing about monopolies, you either have it or you don't. As I've said above, control and accountability don't remove the monopoly on violence, and the US already has an unusually lax regulation on this issue. So what are you saying?
Im saying a few things. First and foremost im saying every politician condemning violence is full of shit. Secondly Im saying the monopoly on violence in the US is not a good thing for two distinct reasons: The system often give the head executive office to someone who doesn't have a popular mandate, meaning the people they place in the positions to execute the state violence shouldn't have the right to hold their position. On top of that no free country half as safe as American uses violence on its citizens more. That is not a sustainable model of monopoly of violence. Hell even the courts are both illegitimate and practicing violence, particularly against women. So it's not even contained to the executive branch.
So in short, politicians lie, illegitimate officers are executing violence on civilians, and more violence on civilians than anyone else. How long does a country like that stay free? Because the answer could just be about 5 more months.
So what is a US where there is no monopoly on violence by the state in your view? Or rather, if it is a "bad thing", what is a good thing? How do you see this working?
The same way US prisons are a bad thing but no serious prison abolitionist things the solution is to instantly release all prisoners right now. We need to take corrective steps and if I knew the in's and out's of all those steps I probably wouldn't be trying to have discussions on social media, and instead be writing books, running for office, or starting a movement.
So you know it's bad but you don't know what good looks like.
Please consider the possibility that this is because it's not bad at all to have the state, rather than private citizens, hold the sole ability to use force, and that the problems you've observed may be unrelated to that principle. Not that they don't exist, just that they are not caused by what you're saying they are.
I leave you with that, in genuine good faith.