The First Step is Admitting The Problem

I think what sticks in my craw about the “political violence is unacceptable” declarations is that it’s basically just a defense of a mythological history that never happened.

Political violence, and most especially what we now consider right wing political violence, has always been acceptable.

There has literally never been a period in our history where that hasn’t been true. There are certain vaguaries, complications, about the individual status of who it is acceptable to commit it against. It has always been acceptable to commit violence against the people the conservative movement has considered its enemies at any given time, and the last fifteen years has been the result of their effort re-establish the permissions that had been revoked in the past.

Why do you think they are attacking educational systems under the guise of “woke” and “DEI”? They want no one to be able to present an alternative to this mythology, which is EXACTLY what curriculums detailing Black history, queer history, and the like do. What happens when there are people of color, queer people, people with disabilities and women in power? They challenge the narratives that continue this mythology.

The refusal to admit that, is a whole lot of why we are here. It is THE significant difference that makes the “both sides” arguments ring hollow, and no problem can be fixed without admitting it is a problem. Blanket statements about “political violence” help obscure it, and help keep this mythologized history as a barrier to do anything real about it.

“Charlie Kirk did politics right, because he used words, not violence,” yet there’s zero recognition that the history of the words Charlie Kirk used are the framework for, the scaffolding for, the permission structure that allows this violence. To claim these are somehow separate principles? Utterly absurd. Clown shoes and squeaky nose type of shit.

The entire project of the US right wing, is re-establishing the permissions structures that created the persecution and dehumanization of hundreds of millions of people, specifically so that violence, whether vigilante, interpersonal or state violence, can be used to discipline and threaten anyone and everyone it sees fit. You think all of this is disconnnected from the President publicly inferring the police should no longer treat domestic violence as a crime is not creating a permission structure for violence? Is that not political? You think ANY of this is separate from National Guard troops being deployed in cities run by their political opposition? You think masked federal agents disappearing people our legal system puts in a limbo of its creation isn’t connected to this? Pardoning 1500 insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol to prevent a legal election from being certified isn’t part of this? You think “Stand Your Ground” laws that return not guilty verdicts for Rittenshouse and Zimmerman isn’t part of it? You think Qualified Immunity for police isn’t part of it?

What’s passing for leadership, for thinking and analysis, is clearly not fucking cutting it. If you’re talking about political violence, and you aren’t or CAN’T (as is increasingly becoming true), you’re wasting everyone’s time with self soothing, self aggrandizing nationalism and narcissism.