{"id":269527,"date":"2024-07-15T12:02:22","date_gmt":"2024-07-15T11:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=269527"},"modified":"2024-07-15T10:09:37","modified_gmt":"2024-07-15T09:09:37","slug":"the-only-kind-of-political-violence-all-u-s-politicians-oppose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/07\/the-only-kind-of-political-violence-all-u-s-politicians-oppose\/","title":{"rendered":"The Only Kind of \u201cPolitical Violence\u201d All U.S. Politicians Oppose"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Law enforcement officials at the scene of an attack that injured Donald Trump on 13 Jul 2024 in Butler, Pa. Photo: Evan Vucci\/AP<\/p><\/div>\n

The Trump rally shooting reveals a bipartisan consensus about what constitutes political violence \u2014 and who should wield it.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

14 Jul 2024 <\/em>– A bipartisan sampling<\/span> of the world\u2019s greatest perpetrators and enablers of political violence has rushed to condemn political violence following the shooting attempt<\/a> on former President Donald Trump on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Politicians swiftly coalesced around the language of \u201cpolitical violence,\u201d rather than terrorism, to describe the assassination attempt, carried out by Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was shot dead at the Western Pennsylvania rally. Taken together, the outpourings of condemnations betray a clear agreement on what constitutes political violence, and in whose hands the monopoly on violence should remain.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea that there\u2019s political violence \u2026 in America like this, is just unheard of, it\u2019s just not appropriate,\u201d said<\/a> President Joe Biden, the backer of Israel\u2019s genocidal war against Palestine<\/a>, with a death toll that researchers<\/a> believe could reach 186,000 Palestinians. Biden\u2019s narrower point was correct, though: Deadly attacks on the American ruling class are vanishingly rare these days. Political violence that is not \u201clike this\u201d \u2014 the political violence of organized abandonment, poverty, militarized borders, police brutality, incarceration, and deportation \u2014 is commonplace.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody must condemn it,\u201d Biden said of the assassination attempt.<\/p>\n

And condemn it, most everyone in the Democratic political establishment has: \u201cPolitical violence is absolutely unacceptable,\u201d wrote <\/a>Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on X. \u201cThere is absolutely no place for political violence in our democracy,\u201d tweeted<\/a> former President Barack Obama, who oversaw war efforts and military strikes<\/a> against Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan with massive civilian death tolls; Obama added that we should \u201cuse this moment to recommit ourselves to civility and respect in our politics.\u201d \u201cThere is no place for political violence, including the horrific incident we just witnessed in Pennsylvania,\u201d wrote <\/a>Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.<\/p>\n

The chorus of condemnation was predictable and not in itself a problem: There\u2019s nothing wrong with desiring a world without stochastic assassination attempts, even against political opponents. But when you have Israel\u2019s minister of foreign affairs, Israel Katz of the fascistic ruling Likud Party, tweeting<\/a>, \u201cViolence can never ever be part of politics,\u201d the very concept of \u201cpolitical violence\u201d is evacuated of meaning.<\/p>\n

The problem is not so much one of hypocrisy or insincerity \u2014 vices so common in politics that they hardly merit mention. The issue, rather, is what picture of \u201cpolitical violence\u201d this messaging serves: To say that \u201cpolitical violence\u201d has \u201cno place\u201d in a society organized by political violence at home and abroad is to acquiesce to the normalization of that violence, so long as it is state and capitalist monopolized.<\/p>\n

As author Ben Ehrenreich noted<\/a> on X, \u201cThere is no place for political violence against rich, white men. It is antithetical to everything America stands for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump and his Republican Party will no doubt remain committed to a political imaginary of apocalyptic race war and paranoid tribalism, which the assassination attempt will likely only feed. Democrats are welcome to perform civility toward the man who has consistently called for their violent overthrow, but they cannot help themselves to the pretense that their well wishes to Trump actually constitute calls for an end to political violence.<\/p>\n

Democratic leaders will call for civility and continue to fill<\/a> the coffers<\/a> of police departments nationwide<\/a>, while sending billions of condition-free dollars and bombs to Israel. Within the U.S., these condemnations of political violence now set the scene for even greater violent repression and policing of protest movements<\/a> and dissent<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will not tolerate this attack from the left,\u201d said Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., who was present at the rally. Little is known about the suspected gunman\u2019s ideology; he was reportedly a registered Republican<\/a> who once donated to a Democratic PAC on Biden\u2019s inauguration day.<\/p>\n

Other Republicans meanwhile blamed Democrats for simply telling the truth about Trump\u2019s far-right extremism. \u201cToday is not just some isolated incident,\u201d Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance wrote on X. \u201cThe central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump\u2019s attempted assassination.\u201d<\/p>\n

If centrist Democrats stating the obvious about Trump can be slammed by Republicans as irresponsible, it bodes ill for any actual leftists organizing against fascist forces going forward \u2014 especially at a time when left-wing and pro-Palestinian protest movements are readily criminalized by both Democratic and Republican leaders. This is what peace means in a world where the only event to invoke a bipartisan chorus decrying \u201cviolence\u201d is an attack on a fascistic former (and potentially future) world leader.<\/p>\n

Go to Original – theintercept.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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