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Dear John,
What is political violence? We adopt Over Zero’s definition: “political violence is violence aimed at political ends — controlling or changing who benefits from, and participates fully in, U.S. political, economic and socio-cultural life”. We should condemn political violence in all its forms as antithetical to what it means to live in a democratic society. But we should keep that same energy when everyday people are subject to political violence: whether it’s bombs dropped by an apartheid state against its victims, police brutality against people expressing their First Amendment rights, or threats and assault aimed at politicians at all levels. The last 2 decades of American politics have seen a significant rise in political violence of all kinds. Social trends like these are not isolated or causeless; they are connected and they are made. We can unmake them, if we first understand how they were made. For decades, elected officials have chosen to invest in violence, spending trillions of dollars on weapons of war that find their way home to the hands of police departments - instead of investing in community: schools, homes, childcare, healthcare, energy, and more. We should expect better from public leaders. We should criticize the escalating rhetoric of fascists like Trump and hold them accountable for the impact their words have. However, that alone will not end the era of political violence we live in. It will also take public institutions that everyday people trust and benefit from. To get there, we must build a world where, as MLK Jr. once said: “those who love peace organize as effectively as those who love war.” In this news digest, we will cover just a few of the cases of political violence, particularly how political violence or threats thereof have been used to keep marginalized voices out of the seats of power, even in Minnesota. It should be noted how much of this political violence stems back to the rhetoric of the Republican Party, especially Donald Trump. 1. Underrepresented groups are harmed most by political violenceWomen, people of color, and young people are already underrepresented in our government, something that is unlikely to fully level out while political violence is also aimed disproportionately at elected representatives from those demographics. Young office holders were more likely to face threats (133%), harassment (84%), and personal insults (75%). 2. Ilhan Omar has faced bigoted threats from early onJust a few months into her first term, Ilhan Omar received a threatening phone call which included the words “I’ll put a bullet in her (expletive) skull”. When interviewed by authorities, he said he was a patriot who loved Donald Trump, whom as we all remember called for a Muslim ban during his 2016 campaign, a ban he has promised to reinstate and expand if re-elected. 3. Current MN GOP Senate candidate has troubling history of bigoted remarksRoyce White, who received 67% of the state GOP convention’s votes for his state senate race, has a history of hurling homophobic and misogynistic slurs. As our co-executive Director Elianne Farhat said two months ago “at TakeAction Minnesota, we believe in a world where everyone can live full, healthy, safe, and joyful lives. Royce White’s anti-LGBTQ+, antisemitic, ableist, and misogynistic comments are wrong and dangerous. He owes Minnesotans an apology and commitment to repair as he seeks one of the highest offices in our state.” 4. Local School Board races marred by threatsThe 2022 school board races hinged around conspiracy theories surrounding Critical Race Theory, basic accommodations for transgender students, and backlash against COVID safety politics. Along with the conspiracies came a wave of violent threats against school board members. In Rochester, board chair Jean Marvin and other members faced “months of threats and outbursts at meetings over mask mandates, critical race theory and other hot-button issues. Marvin, the board president, said her son grew so concerned that he insisted on driving her to board meetings and waiting in the parking lot to ensure her safety.” 5. School shootings have become a constantOver the past 25 years, school shootings have become more and more frequent. Just earlier this year, a shooting threat closed down Fergus Falls schools early for the day. Sadly, the political will to stop those shootings has not manifested. The acceptance of this constant background of violence is a political choice, one the escalation of political violence in America is deeply tied to. The same 2nd Amendment protesters who wear AR-15 pins in support of gun rights after a school shooting have now taken to wearing napkins on their ears in solidarity with Trump, whose ear was shot this past weekend. It says a lot about our political reality that the MAGA cult has more sympathy for an alleged billionaire (who remains very much alive) than for the hundreds of kids who have died in school shootings. 6. Minneapolis settles with ACLU-MN over police mistreatment of protestersThe right to free speech is a fundamental one to a democracy. However, police brutality is often leveraged as a chilling disincentive on that right. In Minneapolis, the ACLU-MN alleged that “Tear gas, foam bullets and pepper spray became weapons for intimidating and hurting protesters, making it dangerous for people to exercise their First Amendment rights”. The ACLU-MN secured an agreement from Minneapolis that “prohibits the city from arresting, threatening to arrest, or using physical force including but not limited to chemical agents, flash bang/concussion grenades, and foam-tipped bullets against people engaging in lawful protests, assemblies, or demonstrations”, and they hope the settlement “sends a message to law enforcement across Minnesota that this violation of our constitutional rights will not be tolerated”. Meanwhile, at the time, Trump famously said “when the looting starts, the shooting starts”, and threatened to send the US military into cities to quell Black Lives Matter protesters. 7. University of Minnesota reaches deal with pro-Palestinian protestersPerhaps influenced by the police violence of 2020, The U of M had one of the better responses to pro-Palestinian protests on campuses across the United States, agreeing to negotiate with student protesters in a deal that Ilhan Omar praised. We will not always win everything we organize for, but one way to dial down political polarization is for powerful institutions to actually grapple with the demands of everyday people, and this was a step in the right direction. However, colleges across the US instead chose political violence against students (and that is not to say that there were no violent arrests on U of M's campus either). This is not what democracy looks like, and it is contributing to our crisis of political and institutional distrust. Meanwhile, Trump has promised to deport any pro-Palestinian student protesters. 8. Minnesota passed 2023 legislation to protect election workersWe can make political choices that mitigate the impacts of this political violence, something Minnesota has led strongly on. Minnesota not only continues to rank highest on voting rates thanks to its poll accessibility, in 2023 the MN legislature passed a bill that protects election workers from harassment, threats, and violence. The law has made it illegal to:
After Donald Trump’s deliberate incitement of a violent attempted coup of the US government (and "coup" is language even the conservative think tank Cato Institute agreed on), it is critically important that our state and federal governments signal strongly that the voice of the people matter, and the results of elections will be upheld and protected. 9. Senate failed to pass Federal Voting Rights legislationWhile the House passed the For the People Act, (a sweeping voting rights legislation package) shortly after the January 6th coup attempt, the Senate ultimately rejected the legislation, leaving millions of voters around the United States without adequate voting rights protection. An absolute critical priority of advocates against political violence must be state and federal legislation that guarantees that all people have a voice in our elections. Of course, Donald Trump has spent the last 8 years arguing it should be harder to vote, even suggesting that millions of people vote illegally in our elections.
All of this to say: there’s a lot more to be done to bring the temperature down on political rhetoric and violence in the United States: building strong community institutions, passing legislation that protects people’s right to protest and to vote, and condemning the overblown rhetoric that has come to dominate our political discourse, while acknowledging that rhetoric comes extremely disproportionately from right-wing fascists who seek to completely delegitimize their opposition and overturn elections violently if they don’t get their way (and while Trump is the most consistent and prominent, he is far from the only purveyor of such rhetoric). Together, we can win a better democracy, but it won't just come from condemning occasional violence against prominent politicians. We must condemn the very system that prioritizes violence, spending more and more money on the military and police and less and less on schools and housing and childcare. We must demand a government a government that divests from death and invests in life. Until next time, Mattias Lehman (he/him) |
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