Political violence has been a hot-button issue in the US lately, to say the least. The phrase has been floating around more and more, popping up frequently in media coverage and national political discourse.
When “Fox & Friends” asked Trump how we could fix this trend in the wake of conservative Charlie Kirk’s assassination, President Donald Trump had this to say: “I’ll tell you something that’s going to get me in trouble, but I couldn’t care less.”
“The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don’t want to see crime. … They’re saying we don’t want these people coming in,” Trump added. “The radicals on the left are the problem. And they’re vicious. And they’re horrible. And they’re politically savvy.”
This characteristically-informal comment made its way off of television and onto National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), entitled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.”
It describes “common recurrent motivations” for anti-fascist (or, in the memorandum’s terms, domestic terrorist and politically violent) action as including:
- anti-Americanism,
- anti-capitalism,
- anti-Christianity,
- support for the overthrow of the United States Government,
- extremism on migration, race, and gender,
- and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.
Trump administration ambitions
These two sources can paint us a surprisingly-detailed picture of what this administration may consider “political violence.” Here, we see that Trump and his ilk aren’t attempting to distinguish between violence and nonviolence. Instead, they’re aiming to criminalize left-wing dissent, while providing state support to right-wing violence.
In other words, President Trump’s administration is preparing to first identify the criminals and then their charges. The ideological motivation of an act of “political violence,” and its judged legitimacy by the state, precedes its impact.
NSPM-7 had been flying mostly under the radar since its release. However, extensive coverage from independent journalist Ken Klippenstein has since elevated the memorandum into a larger spotlight.
The lack of mainstream attention doesn’t mean that NSPM-7 is benign, though. Its ideological focus suggests a potential landmark directive, calling for more extensive federal government efforts to punish dissenting views. In fact, the Trump administration has already begun this work. Its attempts to designate Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization and to deplatform late-night host Jimmy Kimmel are just a few examples.
Ultimately, this administration seems intent on coding dissent as a form of “political violence” in itself, even when non-violent and protected by the First Amendment. In stating this, we need to clarify what exactly “political violence” is.
“Political” violence
We often hear the phrase “political violence” used in reference to isolated events like assassinations. For example, with the recent death of Charlie Kirk and last year’s shooting of former UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
A general definition might state that political violence includes ideologically-motivated actions that deprive people of the ability to live.
Under a definition like that, however, there are other forms of violence that tend to escape the “political violence” moniker. For example, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids that are becoming increasingly commonplace.
These raids—often involving masked agents restraining or engaging in physical clashes with allegedly-undocumented immigrants—are a form of violence that receives state approval in both ideological and material support. Even with the state as the main apparatus of political organization, of government, its violence escapes the label of “political.”
Names can be deceiving
The designation of “political violence” marks the types of violence deemed ideologically unacceptable. But, it doesn’t refer to the state violence established and permitted in law. While I describe political violence as “ill-defined” in the title of this article, it’s also a very deliberately constructed category.
Social theorist Max Weber described the idea of the state as “a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.” The state, according to Weber, is “considered the sole source of the ‘right’ to use violence” and the sole purveyor of that right to other institutions and individuals.
Thus, Trump isn’t the first to allude to this idea of legitimate and illegitimate violence. It’s an idea that has affected many states, past and present. But, it’s important for us to consider why we consider some forms of violence “legitimate” and others “illegitimate.” In what context does violence become justifiable to us? In what context do we immediately find it reprehensible? Are we primed to see certain people as victims and others as perpetrators?
The complexity of violence
Of the several objectionable elements included in NSPM-7, Trump mentions a “traditional American view” on morality which is worthy of further discussion.
From what the current administration says, a “traditional American view” on political violence would ostensibly be that it’s immoral. But, the reality of our nation’s past heavily complicates that idea. The state has found certain forms of American violence acceptable—legitimate, even, resembling Weber’s description of the ‘state’—while punishing others.
Conquest, colonization, and controversy
Let’s take the history of European colonization of the Americas as an example. On October 13, we celebrated Indigenous Peoples’ Day, which famously competes for recognition with the pre-existing Columbus Day.
While Columbus Day intends to honor the renowned explorer Christopher Columbus, his legacy is more complex than any credit he receives for “discovering” the Americas. The brutality of explorers’ interactions with Indigenous people included forceful religious conversion, enslavement, and (sexual) violence.
Given the increasing awareness of this historical reality, many have opted to instead commemorate the legacy of Indigenous people. This reckoning was at its most visible in 2020, when many protestors vandalized monuments or toppled statues honoring figures such as Columbus.
But, the controversy continues today, as the American right staunchly defends Columbus. To celebrate Columbus, Trump released a statement labeling him an “American hero” who “dare[d] to tame the unknown.”
‘Taming the unknown’ may have a rather different connotation to the Indigenous peoples who were forcefully converted to Christianity, enslaved, (sexually) assaulted, or even killed by diseases that European explorers introduced. In many cases, their descendants continue to feel the impact of this violence today.
The rewriting of historical violence doesn’t stop there, either. The Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously awarded to Charlie Kirk was big news, but a story receiving less attention is related to other medals.
Last month, Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a refusal to rescind the Medals of Honor awarded to US soldiers who carried out the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre. That attack killed hundreds of Lakota men, women, and children.
This highlights the military, also, as a site and perpetrator of political violence. It may even be a primary example of an ideologically-motivated force that deprives people of life, whether we consider its actions justified or not.
A strike against slavery
Another instance shows us an example of violence found ‘unacceptable.’ October 16 is the anniversary of abolitionist John Brown’s 1859 raid on the federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. Brown had hoped to bring about a major slave revolt, as Nat Turner had done decades before.
Confronted by federal forces, Brown’s efforts failed. Just a few years before the outbreak of the Civil War, Brown was charged with both treason and murder. He was ultimately executed for his actions.
John Brown faced punishment for his violent resistance to slavery, an extremely violent system once widely accepted in the US. When enslaved people attempted rebellion, they were often returned to their enslavers and subjected to physical torture.
Today, in Trump’s crusade against history museums, the John Brown Museum at the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park is among those facing a revisionist threat.
Evidently, American ‘tradition’ accepts—and relies fundamentally on—state-sponsored violence that combats “anti-American” sentiments, whatever those may be in a specific historical period.
Naming and normalizing
In reviewing the distinctions between historically acceptable and unacceptable violence, we can see the importance of language in establishing norms.
By limiting the definition of “political” violence, there’s a normalization of some types of violence and a targeted politicization of other types. Whether it’s nonviolent or violent dissent that gets targeted, this labeling can produce disproportionate responses to the acts explicitly named as “political.”
In other words, it creates the potential for contradictions. The same people who claim to disavow political violence, who seemingly champion nonviolence, might also cheer at video clips of ICE tackling immigrants. They might call Portland, Oregon a “war zone,” despite the many photos and videos of inflatable animals roaming the streets in protest. They might excuse the hateful speech of their colleagues while decrying the ‘violent rhetoric’ of their opponents.
To provide a contemporary example of this, the Republican Party has been using the language of NSPM-7 in branding anti-Trump, No Kings protests as “un-American.” Speaker of the House Mike Johnson referred to the event as the “Hate America Rally.” He claimed that the gathering would consist of anti-capitalists and Antifa supporters, among others.
There’s a real danger in this reality going unspoken. It permits us to excuse certain types of violence that we deem somehow “natural” or “apolitical.” It encourages us to recognize, question, and denounce only some manifestations of violence.
The ultimate result of the “political” violence categorization is the idea that we don’t need to (whether that means we can’t or shouldn’t) challenge “apolitical” violence.
All violence is political
To reflect more on the ideas previously raised in this piece, the category of “political violence” isn’t just ill-defined and incomplete. It’s not just intentionally constructed to serve ideological purposes. It’s also a redundant phrase, because all violence is political.
All violence is carried out in a political context, influencing and influenced by existing dynamics of power. All violence has political implications. It reflects and confronts our economic system, gender disparities, and racial differences.
Acknowledging this is crucial to actually, substantially decreasing the amount of violence in our world. Without responding to economic violence, for example, it becomes impossible to materially eradicate responding acts of physical violence.
We must conceive of violence as necessarily political in nature, regardless of how apolitical the context might appear. We may not usually think this way, but we can see how theft distinguishes between the haves and have-nots; how sexual violence distinguishes between the empowered and disempowered; and how racial violence distinguishes between the ‘civilized’ and the ‘savage.’ Violence is always a question of power and, thus, a question of politics.
In the world we live in, violence is unfortunately a given. But, this doesn’t mean that all forms of violence are equal. We understand that already. That’s why there are exceptions carved out for self-defense in our laws. It’s why many of us see the resistance of rebelling enslaved people as distinct from the violence of their enslavers.
We can’t allow the current preoccupation with “political violence” to flatten the nuances of violence. We can’t forget the changing contexts in which violence occurs, nor the differing motivations as to why it does. Under an administration this focused on rewriting history, it’s important that we learn and remember what really happened and why. Beyond that, we have to carefully observe all that unfolds now.
