Violent Assgadgets Do Violence; But Maybe The Peaceniks Are To Blame?

The TV coverage since Saturday has been terrible. Let's talk about why that is.

Bluetooth assgadget for illustration purposes only. Neither WeVibe nor any other anal toy company should be assumed to be Republican, violent, or a Trump supporter.

Timothy Snyder at “Thinking About…” gives us this piece reflecting on the 20s and 30s interbellum in Europe. I’m not sure this is profound or anything, but profound or not, given the media insistence on investigating how much blame should be assigned to Biden and Democrats for a Republican attempting to assassinate a Republican, it may be necessary for some to hear.

The main point of Snyder’s piece (and it is a good read, and not too long) is that violence against the politically powerful who endorse violence often comes from their friends rather than their enemies. While Snyder defends this point historically, I’m going to attempt the same point through careful and reasonable inference. I think this is important because the danger with historical lessons is that too many people think, “Yes, but times have changed.” I wish to build a timeless foundation for Snyder’s timely observations.

When a leader gains power by endorsing violence, then by definition they have attracted supporters who approve of violence. Gathering together all those people who see violence as a useful tool to be affirmatively deployed to gain whatever end, and inevitably some violent fuck is going to take a dislike to some other violent fuck in the same clique. Yes, they’re more likely to pass a law against the numerous, faceless mass of their political enemies, but picking one person and saying, “You, personally, deserve to die,” is something different. The Heritage Foundation believes that all pornographers should be imprisoned, and that all trans people are by definition pornographers, but no one from the Heritage Foundation is showing up at my door to look me in the eye as they fire a bullet into my body.

There is a difference between mass targeting and personal targeting. While random street violence is a crime of opportunity, assassination is a crime of planned, considered violence. It is one’s own closest compatriots that are likely to understand best what one’s defences and vulnerabilities are. It is one’s own closest compatriots that are likely to have the kind of very personal grudge necessary to work oneself up to murder.

As Snyder’s article says, this is neither true only for the left nor only for the right. Indira Gandhi was killed not by those she thought hated her, but by those she thought loyal.

Those already in the violent house have greater opportunity and must of necessity have a minimal willingness to endorse violence.

Trump built a violent house. He led a violent riot against his own VP, Mike Pence, in Republican-on-Republican violence. Liz Cheney has endured unending, gruesome threats, Republican-on-Republican threats, because the violent movement Trump built felt betrayed by her. There is currently a movement that endorses violence for political ends in the USA, and it is not one of the left.

If someone on the left came to power endorsing, even begging for violence, then when political violence occurred, the wise would look to the left no matter where the victim was on the political spectrum. Even so, we would expect random violence to more consistently target the right, while personally targeted violence like political assassination would be at least as likely to target the left. A political powerhouse on the left who openly endorsed violent people and violent means, and gained influence through the support of the violent people attracted to such rhetoric would correctly be suspected of responsibility, direct or indirect, for the attempt on Trump’s life.

But again, there is no such powerhouse on today’s Left.

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Remember Trump asking the crowd to beat up someone and promising to pay their legal bills? Remember “very fine people”? Or asking border guards to become more violent and promising to pardon them? “Be there, will be wild”?

Most importantly, do you remember the 187 minutes?

There are always individuals who, for whatever deranged reason believe that political violence is necessary for some cause. To say that the only movement designed to attract the violent is on the right wing is not to say that only people who espouse right-wing beliefs are capable of violence. But isolated individuals lack the exhortation and urgency that come from gathering with others who encourage each to see this moment as a moment ripe for violence.

Trump has crafted a right wing that believes deeply in violence and expects results. In our current political context, it is only the right wing that has crafted a movement from people responsive to calls for violence. While I absolutely agree that no individual should be jailed without due process, I keep hearing how the correct approach to the investigation into the attempted assassination of Trump is to treat an attack from the Left as equally likely as an attack from the Right.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The most violent are the people most encouraged to be violent, who join spaces that approve of violence, who celebrate those who use violence.

While no individual is legally guilty until proven so beyond a reasonable doubt, likewise no individual is bound — ethically or otherwise — to entertain seriously the existence of a heretofore undetected movement on the left as expansive and as fond of violent means as the right wing mix of Christian nationalism, militia organizing, persecution politics, and vendetta fantasies.

To expect a violent, gun-laden household to fire only at the neighbours is an unreasonable denial of everything we know of human nature. Members of the media seeking truthful, useful understanding of this weekend’s attack must look to the Right first.