“Political violence”

In the wake of the assassination attempt against convicted felon Donald Trump, I found myself focusing on the concept of “political violence,” which is condemned on all sides in American politics. So the meaning is basically taken for granted, though it’s rarely defined outside a polemical context.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who has given a lot of attention to “strongmen,” authoritarian rulers, cautions everyone to not expect a mellowing by Trump or his devotees after last weekend assassination attempt. “When #Strongmen survive a threat, they *always* become more vengeful and criminal.” (1)

The 19th century Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) is famous for the observation, “war is not merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means,”

For Clausewitz, “war is not merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means,” (On War (1943), pp. 280). That is to say, war is one means of political intercourse, characterized by military force, to accomplish political ends. Or in a shorter version, war is a continuation of politics by other means. The basic idea is that political leaders have to keep in mind that wars are ultimately political acts, which means that the means used in war need to be compatible with the desired political goals. (2)

But when Joe Biden or other US politicians talk about “political violence,” no one really thinks they are referring to war, but rather to the use of violence to pursue political means that should be pursued by non-violent and non-military means. From the White House text of Biden’s July 14 statement:

As I said last night, there is no place in America for this kind of violence or for any violence for that matter.

An assassination attempt is contrary to everything we stand for as a na- — as a nation. Everything. It’s not who we are as a nation. It’s not America, and we cannot allow this to happen.

Unity is the most elusive goal of all, but nothing is important than that right now — unity.

We’ll debate, and we’ll disagree. That’s not — that’s not going to change. But it’s going to — we’re going to not lose sight of the fact of who we are as Americans. (3)

Film of the full statement (4):

It’s a nice sentiment as long as we take it to refer to what is and should be the norm in democratic societies.

But that statement of what political violence is sentimentalizes the whole concept, suggesting that’s it’s un-American, a rejection of the true American identity. But when you phrase some in a sky-high generalization like, “there is no place in America for this kind of violence or for any violence for that matter,” that’s a pious wish, not a description of obvious reality. I mean, have you ever watched a boxing match or a game of American football? Have you ever looked at the statistics on the number of people killed and wounded by gun violence every day in the US?

Yes, the point of democratic processes and representation, of the classical liberal concepts of freedom of speech and freedom of religion, was about establishing ways of working out disagreements without them leading to civil wars that kill people and endanger the state itself.

We also distinguish between legitimate/legal violence and illegitimate/illegal kinds. Although much violence is perpetrated by governments even outside the context of international war or civil war, a key part of what we understand by rule of law is the notion of “state monopoly on violence.” An essentially part of the concept of a “failed state,” is a situation where the state does not have such a monopoly.

In his lecture “Politics as a Vocation” (1918), the German sociologist Max Weber defines the state as a “human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.” Under feudalism, no lords, including the king, could claim a monopoly over the use of violence, since their vassals promised to serve them but remained free to exercise power in their fiefdoms. Moreover, the king and the landed nobility had to share power or compete with the Roman Catholic Church. The modern state, according to Weber, emerged by expropriating the means of political organization and domination, including violence, and by establishing the legitimacy of its rule. [my emphasis] (5)

But political violence is a much bigger concept that individual assassination attempts. In US history, there are many events which could count as political violence of involving international war. The American Revolution. The Whiskey Rebellion. Slave revolts. The mini-civil-war in “Bleeding Kansas.” John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry. The Civil War itself. The actions of racist terrorist groups attacking Black citizens during Reconstruction and through most of the 20th century aimed at the social and political goal of keeping Black citizens in illegal subjugation.

Do we count violence and counter-violence during strikes and labor struggles as “political violence”? Do we count protests that turned violent either because of official violence or violence initiated by protesters? Does violence used by citizens to defend against illegal violence by police or other agents of the state count? Does ramming a car into a group protesting in the street– which Republicans have made legal in several US states! – count as “political violence”? Was it “political violence” when Bull Connor’s thugs in uniform blasted protesters in Alabama with high-powered water hoses, or was that a legitimate use of the state’s “monopoly of violence”?

And how should we understand property damage in connection with political protests? Does breaking a store window during a protest march count as “violence” in the same sense as attacking people? Or does that count as “vandalism” instead of violence.

When we get into questions of what kind of acts of “political violence” outside the state monopoly of violence are justified and/or moral, things get even messier. The issue of whether tyrannicide is legitimate was one discussed since long before our time:

[Tyrannicide is] The murder of a tyrant whose rule has become insupportable. Some Christians hold that it is unjustifiable on the ground either that all killing is forbidden or that force is invested by Divine authority in the de facto civil government. Most hold that rebellion, including tyrannicide, is defensible in conditions when, if the oppressor were an alien, war would be justified, and provided that the grievance is considerable and circumstances offer no milder means of redress. (6)

Claus von Stauffenberg (1907-1944) and his co-conspirators are honored in Germany today for their nearly-successful attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1944.

But that obviously doesn’t mean that everyone who tries to kill a head of state or major politician is justified in their actions. Realistically, almost none of them are. And as a practical consideration, killing even an extremely powerful dictator isn’t always guaranteed to make things better. Even the group of conspirators with Von Stauffenberg were not offering to immediately surrender and let the Allies restructure the government of Germany.

In the case of the now-deceased Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old identified as the shooter in the attack on Trump last weekend, it’s not at all clear what his motive were, and they may never be.

But it has been the case for decades that by far the main source of political violence in the US has been the radical right, including characters like Timothy McVeigh, a rightwing Catholic zealot who was a hardcore anti-abortion fanatic.

It wasn’t leftwingers or Biden supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6 at the incitement of then-President Trump. It was hardcore Trumpistas. That’s reality.

Notes:

(1) Ben-Ghiat, Right (2024): X/Twitter 07/16/2024. <https://x.com/ruthbenghiat/status/1813259375013679566> (Accessed: 2024-16-07).

(2) Miyata, Francis (2021): The Grand Strategy of Carl von Clausewitz. War Room 03/26/2021.<https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/mission-statement/> (Accessed: 2024-16-07).

(3) Remarks by President Biden. White House website 07/14/2024. <https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2024/07/14/remarks-by-president-biden-2/> (Accessed: 2024-16-07).

(4) WATCH: President Biden addresses the nation following assassination attempt on Trump. MSNBC 07/14/2024. <https://www.youtube.com/live/fGRa5RRpiTo?si=O6HPMqSjm3JREv23> (Accessed: 2024-16-07).

(5) Munro, André (2013): "state monopoly on violence". Encyclopedia Britannica 03/03/2013.<https://www.britannica.com/topic/state-monopoly-on-violence> (Accessed: 2024-16-07).

(6) tyrannicde. Oxford Reference 2024. <https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803110431557> (Accessed: 2024-16-07).