The issue, rather, is what picture of āpolitical violenceā this messaging serves: To say that āpolitical violenceā has āno placeā in a society organized by political violence at home and abroad is to acquiesce to the normalization of that violence, so long as it is state and capitalist monopolized.
As author Ben Ehrenreich noted on X, āThere is no place for political violence against rich, white men. It is antithetical to everything America stands for.ā
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Politicians swiftly coalesced around the language of āpolitical violence,ā rather than terrorism, to describe the assassination attempt, carried out by Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was shot dead at the Western Pennsylvania rally.
āThe idea that thereās political violence ā¦ in America like this, is just unheard of, itās just not appropriate,ā said President Joe Biden, the backer of Israelās genocidal war against Palestine, with a death toll that researchers believe could reach 186,000 Palestinians.
Bidenās narrower point was correct, though: Deadly attacks on the American ruling class are vanishingly rare these days.
āThere is absolutely no place for political violence in our democracy,ā tweeted former President Barack Obama, who oversaw war efforts and military strikes against Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan with massive civilian death tolls; Obama added that we should āuse this moment to recommit ourselves to civility and respect in our politics.ā āThere is no place for political violence, including the horrific incident we just witnessed in Pennsylvania,ā wrote Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
Trump and his Republican Party will no doubt remain committed to a political imaginary of apocalyptic race war and paranoid tribalism, which the assassination attempt will likely only feed.
Democratic leaders will call for civility and continue to fill the coffers of police departments nationwide, while sending billions of condition-free dollars and bombs to Israel.
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