By David Amaya
The founding documents of the United States of America are glorious because they enshrine the Enlightenment ideals that liberated us from the oppression of authoritarian governments. There are many forms of oppression that include restrictions of civil liberties and rights, inaccessibility to resources, as well as physical coercion. In our nation, we have inalienable rights that promote life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. When our ability to achieve these ends are obstructed by the state, Thomas Jefferson says in the Declaration of Independence, we have a right to revolution. That is because the state derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed; constituents are the government. If the constituents are not healthy in mind or body, then the government is not a healthy democracy.
When we think of violence in the political system, myriad issues come to mind, including hate crimes, gun rights issues, police brutality, riots and crimes against the government (e.g. the insurrection of January 6, 2021). These issues are all derived from our nature’s capacity to be selfish, which leads to other problems such as greed or an inability to respectfully air out grievances. Inevitably, one may resort to violence; a state of nature in the Hobbesian sense.
The truth of the matter is that verbal violence precedes physical violence — mental health affects our physical health. Consequently, when the ailments of the body politic manifest themselves in violent ways, it is an indication we are not in a healthy democracy despite living in a government where we celebrate peaceful transitions of power. We are living in an age where we know the antonym of violence is kindness, yet most civically engaged citizens opt to tune in to news sources that profit enormously off divisiveness.
Violence in politics is not a novel phenomenon, but its appearance this decade has been magnified, especially through the leadership of our previous president, Donald Trump. This man, who led the country that was the first to use Enlightenment ideals in its Constitution, promoted violence (e.g. offers to pay legal fees of someone who will “knock the crap out” of a dissenter at one of his rallies) and suppressed speech (e.g. impromptu photo-op to get rid of George Floyd protests in front of St. John’s Church). As the man with the most powerful microphone in the world, Mr. Trump infamously silenced and punished those outside his frame of thinking; concurrently, hate crimes went up by 20% under his presidency, according to the FBI.
The threat of violence is obvious and conspicuous because although we may live in the safest times in history, we also live in the age with the most exposure to violence through news and media. The pinnacle of this paradox can be seen at how close America was to having the American flag removed atop Capitol Hill and replaced with a Trump flag at the January 6 insurrection. The Big Lie, as it is called, moved radicalized people to storm into our legislative halls and vandalize our democracy’s House over perceived oppression (that is, purported voter fraud that silenced the Republican vote). This example of violence was different from what we had seen before because it was a personal attack on not only the culture of democracy but on democracy itself— a noose was allegedly prepared for Vice President Mike Pence and there were reports of attempted kidnapping plots of our elected representatives.
Naturally, we must ask ourselves: when our fragile democracy is doubted instead of reinforced, is violence a legitimate means to achieve a just end (or just intention)? I say this is a natural question that follows the insurrection because we are headed towards more institutional conundrums and dilemmas that must heed our past. For example: what will happen when 30% of the U.S. population controls 70% of the Senate and 70% of the U.S. population controls 30% of the Senate? Questions like these are worrisome and prophesize a decline in American democracy when authoritarianism is on the rise around the world.
To ensure the longevity of our U.S. Constitution and our democracy, we must not resort to violence to rectify the anomalies of our political system — this is why we have civil debates, free and fair elections, a legislative process, and grassroots organizing. The tools to mitigate violence are present, as are the tools for compassion and unity. Instead of destroying our democracy’s reputation, we should build up our capacity to communicate effectively; including holding accountable the for-profit business of divisive rhetoric.