Violence

"Political power grows at the barrel of a gun." Mao Tse-tung

Bomb threats target Democratic Congress members from Connecticut (11/28/2024)

FBI informant’s book predicts far-right violence: ‘we should be afraid’ (8/25/2024)

Reversing the vicious cycle of “anticipatory obedience (8/8/2024)

‘No way out without bloodshed’: the right believe the US is under threat and are mobilizing (6/2/2024)

How Violence and Intimidation Are Key to Understanding Trump (4/1/2024)

"It'll be bedlam": how Trump is creating conditions for a post-election eruption (3/23/2024)

How death threats get Republicans to fall in line behind Trump (1/2/2024)

The Psychiatrist Who Warned Us That Donald Trump Would Unleash Violence Was Absolutely Right (9/2022)

The Right’s Violence Problem (5/17/2022)

The Rise in Political Violence in the United States and Damage to Our Democracy (3/31/2022)

The Republican party is embracing violence in the name of Trump (12/3/2021)

Republicans are increasingly ready for violence: We look away at our peril (8/3/2021)

Civil paths to peace have always been and still remain the basic way of successfully confronting violence and terrorism...As Buddha said more than 2,500 years ago, the solution to most problems lies ultimately in clearer understanding, and that demands intellectual engagement, and not merely prompt action. Peace and Democratic Society Amartya Sen (editor) Open Book
The acceleration in violent incidents from 2016 to 2020 – and their probable fall in 2021 – does not mean the threat has receded. Instead, it tells us something about the nature of the threat and its causes. The trends we see in the spring of 2022 are indicative of violent behavior in the U.S. that can be motivated spontaneously by social events and can be directed purposefully for political goals. Politically-catalyzed violence should be expected to rise with the election calendar and to fall between campaigns. The damage that this violence itself, and the conspiracies driving it, are causing to our democracy are already substantial and are likely to produce significant democratic decline if not arrested soon.
The Rise in Political Violence in the United States and Damage to Our Democracy
Rachel Kleinfeld, Senior Fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The insistence on unfettered gun ownership is a core tenet of white identity politics. Bryan Stevenson
As has been the case for most of the past 30 years, the extremist-related murders of 2020 were overwhelmingly associated with right-wing extremists. All but one of the incidents documented (including 16 of the 17 murders) were tied to right-wing extremism; over half were linked to white supremacists. The remaining death was at the hands of a left-wing extremist. This past year was the second year in a row that no killings linked to domestic Islamist extremism occurred.
Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2020 (ADL)
"Violence is fomented by the imposition of singular and belligerent identities on gullible people, championed by proficient artisans of terror." ~ Amartya Sen
"U.S. movies, tv shows, video games, music, news, and schools are uniquely and increasingly violent. Primates' chief form of behavior is imitation. Humans are no exception to that rule. Human cultures that have not known stories of mass-murder have also not known mass-murder. Anthropologists have studied cultures in which people have had an absolute taboo on taking human life." David Swanson

Colorado supreme court justices face death threats after Trump ruling (12/21/2023)

How Political Violence Went Mainstream on the Right (11/7/2022)

America is steeped in violence. And the roots of that violence go deep (6/1/2022) Guardian

The Republicans Have Become the Party of Organized Violence (11/29/2021)

Judges Threatened
Let us make it perfectly clear: The Republican Party - who, at the NRAs behest, refuses to make a single effective change to our heartbreakingly stupid gun laws - is directly complicit in every massacre, gun suicide, dead wife, slain girlfriend, murdered family, slaughtered child killed by yet another clotted, gun-wielding male. And the National Rifle Association remains the truest terrorist organization in America, far more nefarious - and brutally effective - than ISIS could ever dream to be. Mark Morford.
For every U.S. soldier killed in Afghanistan during 11 years of war, at least 13 children were shot and killed in America. More than 450 kids didn't make it to kindergarten. Another 2,700 or more were killed by a firearm before they could sit behind the wheel of a car. Every day, on average, seven children were shot dead. At least 28,000 children and teens were killed by guns over an 11-year-period
2018 was a particularly active year for right-wing extremist murders: Every single extremist killing — from Pittsburgh to Parkland — had a link to right-wing extremism. Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2018
"Even if Trump passes from the scene, the embrace of violence and intimidation as a political tactic by a faction of the GOP will cause violence of all types to rise - against all Americans." Rachel Kleinfeld
Giffords, 40,... after being shot through the head..., criticized Sarah Palin last year for putting her and 19 other Democrats on a hitlist of districts, each shown as being in crosshairs. Guardian (1/9/2011)

Violence is always wrong, and is never an answer. War is usually initiated by right wing government out of tribal prejudice, or to steal land or resources by force. It should only be legitimate in self defense.

Violent political intimidation follows Trump.

Republicans, by corrupting the Supreme Court, and the GOP made the US number 1 in gun violence. Trump rhetoric made it mainstream.,,,

Israel is risking a much wider war by it’s genocidal response to a terrorist attack.

Putin decided to go to war in Ukraine to capture it for Russia.

World Wars were caused by right wing countries thinking it was their right to expand by force. The US now has an eerie resemblance to 1933 Germany and may yet lose WWII and collapse into fascism.

Colonialism often led to genocide justified by religion.

Empire and its ally religion caused atrocities including genocide and war in much of the world.

It was wrong to go to war after 9/11, The forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were pointless and a waste that brought the US to bankruptcy.

The US has the world’s largest military. What you prepare for will surely come to pass.

Nuclear weapons are a waste that should never be used. In its disdain for international law, the US has not joined the UN ban on nuclear weapons.

The UN was intended to preserve peace, but is not well supported by the US, which usually refuses to pay its dues, and doesn't live up to agreements.

GOP Family celebrating Christmas

Should America Be Worried About Political Violence? And What Can We Do to Prevent It? (9/16/2019) Rachel Kleinfeld

Bibliography