A BIPARTISAN SAMPLING of the worldā€™s greatest perpetrators and enablers of political violence has rushed to condemn political violence following the shooting attempt on former President Donald Trump on Saturday.

ā€œThe idea that thereā€™s political violence ā€¦ in America like this, is just unheard of, itā€™s just not appropriate,ā€ said President Joe Biden, the backer of Israelā€™s genocidal war against Palestine, with a death toll that researchers believe could reach 186,000 Palestinians. Bidenā€™s narrower point was correct, though: Deadly attacks on the American ruling class are vanishingly rare these days. Political violence that is not ā€œlike thisā€ ā€” the political violence of organized abandonment, poverty, militarized borders, police brutality, incarceration, and deportation ā€” is commonplace.

And condemn it, most everyone in the Democratic political establishment has: ā€œPolitical violence is absolutely unacceptable,ā€ wrote Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on X. ā€œThere 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 ā€œuse this moment to recommit ourselves to civility and respect in our politics.ā€ ā€œThere is no place for political violence, including the horrific incident we just witnessed in Pennsylvania,ā€ wrote Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.

The chorus of condemnation was predictable and not in itself a problem: Thereā€™s nothing wrong with desiring a world without stochastic assassination attempts, even against political opponents. But when you have Israelā€™s minister of foreign affairs, Israel Katz of the fascistic ruling Likud Party, tweeting, ā€œViolence can never ever be part of politics,ā€ the very concept of ā€œpolitical violenceā€ is evacuated of meaning.

  • MudMan@fedia.io
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    4 months ago

    This is obvious and, honestly, the arguments against it are so weak and rely on such a niche, deliberate misunderstanding of howā€¦ you know, reality works, that itā€™s probably not worth engaging with them. Especially not now. Itā€™s still shocking to see it written down, though, at least until one remembers that people can just write whatever they want on social media.

    Iā€™ll give them this, though: the notion that political violence like this is ā€œunheard ofā€ in the US is absurd. It is shockingly frequent.