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.
No, I’m saying that not all violence is political violence. Things that aren’t even violent are definitely not political violence. The author’s definition of “political violence” appears to include any government action that he’s not happy with. (He reminds me of the “taxes are theft” libertarians.)
Their main example is Gaza and that violence is political. Hamas is a political party with support from Palestinians that Israel is trying to wipe out using violence. In fact most violence is political in that you are trying to get certain changes to the governing apparatus through action.
There’s a mao quote that goes something along the lines of politics is war without violence and war is politics with violence. They’re two sides of the same coin.
