Stoking Political Violence

Sadly, an American story

With all the news going on, a tragic anniversary went by with little notice.¹ But I think it is highly relevant. 

September 15 marked the 61st anniversary of the church bombing at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama that killed four girls as they attended Sunday school. Many others were wounded. The bomb was placed by Klansmen in a ruthless act of terrorism. I would also argue it was an act of political violence. 

There is a lot of talk about political violence these days and for good reason. We are now living through the aftermath of a second assassination attempt on Donald Trump, which we must all be extremely thankful was thwarted by the secret service. 

This follows the presidential debate where Trump repeated false right-wing claims about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio stealing pets to eat. His running mate, JD Vance, has amplified these racist attacks despite pleas by the city’s Republican mayor and Ohio’s Republican governor to stop the lies as an atmosphere of fear grips the town amid bomb threats at schools. 

As we assess this fraught moment in our nation’s history, and our history more generally, it is vital that we consider the role violence has played, and continues to play, in the American story. And it is essential to understand who has wielded it, how, and why. 

The sad truth is that violence has been woven into the fabric of American political life since the nation’s founding, primarily serving as a brutal tool for those in power to suppress the oppressed and deny them full participation in our democracy.

Our nation was founded on land violently taken from the native inhabitants. Violence was the hallmark of slavery. The entire system depended on slave owners having the power to inflict violence on human beings they held as property. The American political system was built upon and sustained by this violence. It was written into the Constitution. 

Even after the Civil War, violence continued to be the most potent tool for white supremacy. Jim Crow was predicated on violence, with force and terror used to prevent Black Americans from exercising their political and economic rights. The political order of the segregated south was enforced by mob terror, resulting in thousands of lynchings. These same forces are the ones that killed the four girls in Birmingham in 1963. And even when violence didn’t erupt, the ever-present threat of it loomed.

Prior to the Civil Rights Movement, the United States could not be considered a true democracy because millions of people couldn’t vote due to violence and the political system that enshrined it into law.

This dynamic has not been confined to issues of race. Throughout American history, those seeking to preserve their political and economic dominance have resorted to violence and the threat thereof—to terrorize immigrants, undermine labor organizers, target the LGBTQ community, and silence those fighting for environmental justice. Women have faced legally and socially sanctioned violence in many forms. The overturning of Roe v. Wade is, in itself, an act of violence. We have already seen examples of women suffering, and even dying, as a result. 

When we look back at our history, often it has been vigilante violence that gets most of the attention. But it has also been the laws of the land, the legal system, and the arm of the law—at the local, state, and national levels—that have permitted or directly inflicted violence in service of enforcing an unjust status quo.

Certainly, there have been instances of violence by marginalized communities resisting deep injustices—anarchists and activists across various causes. However, when we consider how political institutions in this country have long tolerated and perpetuated violence, it’s clear that the responsibility for its use falls disproportionately on those in power who have historically wielded violence to maintain their dominance in an unequal society.

We have seen Trump and his allies instinctually attuned to amassing and retaining power by embracing appeals to violence. It is a common play for autocrats to blame minority populations for undermining public safety and fomenting violence when it is really the despots who are stoking hatred.

Remember Trump coming down his escalator to announce his candidacy by demonizing Mexican immigrants as violent drug dealers and rapists? Ever since, he has courted and incited violence. He has attacked the press, immigrants (especially those from countries he called “shitholes”), his political opponents, and anyone who dares to call out his dangerous policies and rhetoric.

And then there was the violent insurrection on January 6, where Trump personally undermined the peaceful transfer of presidential power by unleashing a mob bent on inflicting violence on the U.S. Capitol. It’s not surprising that those who wished to impose their illegitimate will on the nation used American flags as weapons and even brought the Confederate flag into the seat of our national government. In the aftermath of that horror, the few Republican politicians who had the temerity to criticize Trump have faced threats of violence to themselves and their families. 

With this unambiguous track record, it is unsurprising that in the wake of the latest assassination attempt on Trump at his golf course in Florida, the former president and his allies would desperately try to blame Democrats. They point to the political leanings of the suspected gunman, who seems to be a disturbed person who jumped from cause to cause but has espoused language about Trump’s danger to democracy.

There will always be lone individuals who, for reasons unique to them, pose a danger to elected officials. Over the course of our history, most assassins and would-be assassins of presidents fall into this category (the conspiracy to kill President Lincoln being a notable exception). It is disingenuous, and exemplifies false equivalence, to say that Vice President Harris and those who are calling out the danger Trump poses to American democracy are somehow responsible for the suspected gunman’s actions. These are political arguments about the future of the country based on truth. 

Trump, Vance, and all the others who are blaming Democrats are the ones stoking violence. This includes Elon Musk who eventually deleted a tweet wondering why no one was trying to kill President Biden and Vice President Harris. Trump’s rhetoric, now echoed by many Republican elected officials, has always been tinged with violence—whether against immigrants, Democrats, the press, or otherwise.

It is not inflammatory to say that if he is re-elected, Trump and his minions would use the power of the state to foment chaos. Believe him when he boasts that he would round up millions of undocumented immigrants, even though it might be a “bloody story” (his words). And do not dismiss his threats to weaponize the Department of Justice to attack his political rivals.

When Trump says he wants to “make America great again,” he’s invoking a past where solely people who looked like him controlled the country, and those who didn’t “knew their place.” And if they dared to challenge that, they were reminded—through violence or its threat—that they had no real political power or equal standing in America.

But I believe, and the polls suggest, that most Americans reject this vision. Violence may have shaped large parts of our past, but it doesn’t need to define who we are or the future we want to build. We must be vigilant, because even if Trump loses, and maybe especially if he does, violence may ensue. Yet, defeating the violent vision he represents would mark a significant historical turning point as we still grapple with the legacies of our founding sins.

The story of America has been one of a winding journey—increasingly away from political violence and toward justice and equality. We have a ways to go. But I strongly suspect we’re not going back.

1.  Joyce Vance’s Substack being a notable exception.