Where We Stand 4 — Political Violence

In this Where We Stand series, I am examining democracy and its wounds, many of them with a long American history, many of them intensified during the Donald Trump Administration.  This post is about violence that is designed explicitly to influence values and politics.

American political violence is hardly new: One has only to think of the Ku Klux Klan, anti-union violence of the early 20th century, or 400 years of state-sanctioned violence against African Americans.  The years before the Civil War saw more than 70 incidents of violence between lawmakers on the floors of Congress.  But after anti-war protests and the police response, violence again went mostly underground.  But the acceptability of political violence is growing again.  As I wrote in the introduction to this series,  

Openly carried assault weapons are legal and frequently visible, militia [come into the open], threats of violence against political “enemies” are not unusual.  Then-candidate Trump suggested violence against protesters at campaign rallies.   A peaceful demonstration across from the White House was violently suppressed.  Our political language is ever-more violent.  Incredibly, some members of Congress fear violence from their congressional colleagues.  With such violence comes fear, and fear inhibits democracy.

 Unfortunately, American political violence exists within the larger American culture of violence: guns on the streets; far-right white-supremacist groups and (to a lesser degree) far-left groups espousing violence; openly carried military assault weapons; and so on.  It is not surprising that this culture spills over into politics.  Even before the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, the sight of armed militia at marches and protests had become common.  In April of last year, a handful of people in camouflage armed with semiautomatic rifles stood in the Michigan Senate Gallery as the lawmakers went about their work.  Heavily armed with assault rifles, a group “guarded” the door to the office of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in protest of the governor’s Covid-mask requirement.

Heavily armed protesters outside Michigan governor’s office

 The pictures still stun me. Take a moment to consider those images of assault weapons in the political context.  What have we become when people armed with those weapons are a normalized part of our politics?

They call themselves “peacekeepers,” but legitimate peacekeepers are sent to areas already engaged in violence to keep the violent combatants apart.  These “peacemakers,” however, are combatants themselves and they enter into peaceful protests, intentionally threatening violence.

It is not surprising, then, that even legislators have begun to carry guns in the Capitol (and clandestinely, into the congressional chambers).

The state of national politics has resulted in near-complete partisan divide on any disputed issue.  Worse, these battles are accompanied by accusations of “bad-faith”.  The other side is not just wrong but un-American, a threat to our way of life that must be opposed at any price … including threats of violence and, increasingly, violence itself.

Unless we manage to de-escalate the wider culture of violence, the only solution to the problem of political violence is gradually to turn down the temperature in our politics.  This is certainly most difficult and, as the Civil War demonstrated, not always possible where core values are threatened.  But it is not impossible: Previous times of extremism and political violence have eventually resolved … usually, however, requiring years.  

As the Republican Party retreats into ever-more extremist positions (see my last post), there is a possibility that the conservative point of view will, with time, find expression in a new, less extreme, party (or repurposing of the current Republican Party) comprising conservative Democrats, independents, business interests, and at least some libertarians.  The major challenge, then, may simply be to hold the country and our politics together long enough, a difficult but not impossible task.

The "boring" first months of the Biden Administration may be a beginning.

The Beginning of the End for the Republican Party?

David Hilfiker

Predicting American politics is a fool’s game, especially given the uncertainty that clouds the future of the Republican Party.  Nevertheless, I have been fascinated to watch Republican leaders make decision after decision that could hardly be better calculated to destroy their party.  Jumping on the “Big Lie” of a 2020 election as riven with fraud and “irregularities” seemed perhaps politically imperative when Donald Trump was still president, guaranteed to hammer anyone who crossed him.  The last stand by the majority of GOP congressional lawmakers on January 6 trying to overturn the results of the presidential election— even after the insurrection had left blood on the walls of Congress — will perhaps not hurt the standing of Republican candidates’ in large swaths of the party, but counting on moderate Republican voters to forget such egregiously unconstitutional moves seems unwise at best and, at worst, suicidal.  

A series of unforced errors since then may signal the ultimate incapacity of the Republicans to recover and remain a national party.  Caught between the advancing wildfire of the Trumpists and the dwindling firebreak of Republican moderates, there may be no way out.  Consider these decisions.

Opposing immensely popular legislation

Since its initial proposal, President Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan with its $1400 per-person stimulus checks had the overwhelming support of American voters, including over half of Republicans.  Given that strong public endorsement; the certainty of the bill’s eventual passage in a Democratic Congress; the public’s strong, on-going desire for an end to the partisan bickering; and Biden’s repeated invitations to the GOP to join him in crafting the bill, complete Republican intransigence cannot but hurt the party.  McConnell and his fellow Republican lawmakers now appear poised to make the same mistake with the equally popular $2 trillion infrastructure bill and perhaps the nascent voting-rights bill, too.  

Supporting voter suppression

Over 350 voting restriction bills have now been proposed (and some cases passed) in forty-seven states (almost all by Republican legislators) across the country.  In the absence of any significant voter fraud in the 2020 election, these bills — to restrict voter registration, cut down on absentee ballots, remove drop-in ballot boxes, increase voter ID requirements, even (in Georgia) make it illegal to pass out food and water to people waiting in line to vote — can only be interpreted as attempts at voter suppression.

As the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin writes:

The fight nationwide is not about Georgia, or whether limiting each county to a single drop box is justifiable. It is about a party determined to invalidate the last election and to suppress votes against them. One party believes in making it as easy as possible for everyone to vote despite hurdles such as physical disability, age, job requirements, no broadband Internet or lack of a driver’s license; the other party thinks disenfranchisement, often aimed at minorities, is a legitimate partisan weapon.

Threatening their own donors

In a bizarre little misadventure,

[t]he National Republican Congressional Committee threatened donors that it will tell former president Donald Trump that they are defectors if they opt out of giving recurring monthly funds to the campaign arm for the House GOP.

The threat is unlikely to survive the attendant publicity, but it does give some indication of the extremes to which the party is willing to go.

Alienating corporate sponsors

Coca-Cola, Major League Baseball (MLB), Delta Airlines and others with important ties to Georgia and (traditionally) to the Republican Party have strongly condemned the Georgia voter suppression laws; MLB even pulled its all-star game from Atlanta.  In response, Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called the corporate opposition “stupid” and tweeted: “My warning to corporate America is to stay out of politics.”  Perhaps recognizing the irony, he added “I’m not talking about political contributions.”  To the extent the Republican Party alienates its corporate sponsors, it loses a major source of reliable funding.

The corporate response is much more likely an expression of the profit motive than an indication of changing conscience.  Given the rapidly changing American demographic — more people of color, more immigrants, more urban voters — corporate executives know which way the wind is blowing.  Getting on the demographic train is a rational business decision against which McConnell doesn't have much leverage.

A reasonable response?

At first blush it may appear that the Republican leadership’s response — whatever their personal thoughts about the right-wing extremism now dominating the party — is necessary political maneuvering.  After all, according to polls, large majorities of Republicans still

• believe that the 2020 election was rife with fraud and that Trump actually won it,
• believe the Jan 6 insurrection was either non-violent or was caused by antifa “members” (sic) posing as Trump supporters,
• support Trump and consider him the leader of the Republican Party.
  

Without the support of these Trumpists, the thinking undoubtedly goes, there is no Republican Party.  The current strategy is designed to hold on to this intensely loyal group, which, as in 2016 and 2020, will form the core of the party.

The problem, of course, is that the party cannot win nationally without adding moderate Republicans and independents to its core.  As the party strays into more and more extremist rhetoric, however, it inevitably pushes those moderates away.  After the Jan 6 insurrection, there was still a chance that the leadership would recognize their folly and begin to rebuild the party on the basis of traditional conservative issues.  McConnell’s aggressive speech calling Trump “practically and morally responsible” for the insurrection gave hope that the party would move back to its moderate stance. But, as the above indicates, that wasn’t really an option: Without maintaining the Trump base, the party was lost, at least in the short run.

So, they have no way out.  The party leadership has committed itself to radical, right-wing extremism.  It can’t move forward or back.  

Neither the polls nor any other technique, of course, can give us a reliable, accurate picture of who we are as a people, and certainly not whom we will become.  Most likely is a Democratic resurgence.  One can’t rule out the possibility — however unlikely — that the United States has passed beyond the pale and will ride the Republican elephant directly into fascism.  Either way, one has to wonder whether this is the beginning of the end of the Republican party as we have known it.