Assorted observations on the normalization of violence in American politics

 Once upon a time, being a political scientist was fun.  The process of it becoming less fun was a gradual thing, although there is no mystery about the inflection point.  As a warning, I'm going to spend a few sentence, or perhaps a paragraph, digressing on mathematics before I get to politics.  It's a thing I'm going to do to clear my head.  It's the math geek version of deep-breathing.  Ohm-ohm...

An inflection point has a specific mathematical meaning.  A minimum or a maximum.  You find the local minimum or maximum of a function by finding the point at which the first derivative of that function becomes 0.  You differentiate the function, and any point at which the derivative takes a value of 0 is either a local minimum or a local maximum because the slope of the line tangent is 0.  Yet the curvature of a function can also change.  At what rate does the slope of a function change?  It can get more or less steep.  The "steepness" can change, and the rate at which it changes can change, and so on, ad infinitum.  An inflection point.  Differentiate the first derivative, and you have yourself a second derivative.  Any point at which the second derivative of a function takes a value of 0 is an inflection point.  A point at which the curvature of the function changes.  The function grows more steep, then less steep, or vice versa.  Something about the function changes.

2016.  To say it was an inflection point is more than mere colloquial affectation.  It is mathematical, and thanks to the brilliance of good, ole' Ike and Gottfried, the alchemist and the monad-ian, we have a mathematical language (really, Gottried's language was more elegant, if we're honest) for discussing, well, OK, Ike would have called it "fluxion," but inflection/fluxion/whatever.  We all love language, or at least, those of us who are civil and civilized, but that's rather where I'm going here.

An inflection point.  American democracy and civil culture, however we define and describe it, had been experiencing declines, or Donald J. Trump never could have been nominated by any party in 2016.  With all due consideration for the concept of civility, as this post addresses, Donald J. Trump is the lowest sack of shit in the history of the United States of America.  Now let's consider how to restore civility given what he has done because no, "hang Mike Pence" is not "common sense."  It's treason.

Sarah Palin was a harbinger, and tracing back, we'd address Gingrich, talk radio and Rush Limbaugh, and plenty of other figures who set the stage for Donald J. Trump and Ike's fluxion, but this isn't a post about second derivatives.  That was merely the throat-clearing of a self-important windbag who needed an introduction that wasn't merely glaring at the keyboard.

Instead, this morning my glare is directed at some more obvious events of late.  Paul Gosar, of course.  Anyone reading this pretentious, little blog would know that I have no fondness for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  I disagree with her on policy, I do not think much of her intellect, I am eternally frustrated by her ignorance of history and economics, and her devaluation of knowledge.  Her self-righteous, sanctimonious bullshit, combined with willful ignorance is exactly what bothers me about Trump, and her belief that all you need is a twitter account to be a policy maker... no, I do not like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

But then there's Paul Gosar.  Gosar is just on a different level entirely.  Those of us who follow Congress for a living have known for a while that even his own family wants nothing to do with him because he is a clinical sociopath.  He is actually, truly dangerous.  Gosar should be locked up.  Not as in, the chant of "lock him up," but that guy is scary.  He is unbalanced, and dangerous.  That cartoon is not a ha-ha satire.  Paul Gosar is dangerous.  This isn't even Kathy Griffin territory.

I'm going to say this again.  Paul Gosar is a risk of violent crime.  Not even just that he will inspire violence-- even though he will-- rather, there is an increasing probability that Paul Gosar will personally commit an act of violence.  And it is being celebrated.

Let's also be clear that we aren't in a "violence will happen" situation.  We are in a "violence will happen again" situation.  January 6.  It already happened.  It will happen again.  It will happen again because the side that pushed the batshit crazy conspiracy theories that motivated the insurrectionists has ramped up their rhetoric rather than tamping it down.

There were two paths forward after January 6.  The Republican Party is taking the "burn democracy to the ground because we're afraid of Donald Trump" path.

Violence, normalized.

Now I ask you to consider your daily life.  You are living it.  Probably not in a bunker, locked down as you were in, say, April of 2020.  Running errands?  Maybe even working in the outside world?  Interacting?  How's that goin'?

Here is a simple observation, or rather, set of observations.  When people do not talk about politics (or the other forbidden topic, religion), they remain remarkably... "normal."  Of course, I still think "normal" sucks.  I'm a misanthrope.  I like to keep my interactions minimal, and return to my books, and my music, but really, consider what happens when you go out into the world and conduct your daily life not talking politics.  Your experience will be affected by COVID, the mask situation and all that, but as far as social dynamics, pretty 2015, right?  That inflection point?  Do you detect it?  Or can you pretty much have a normal interaction with people, not getting into violent confrontations, as long as you aren't talking politics?

Alas, COVID is political, thanks to Trump, but consider.  If you are reading a blog post addressing conservative/Republican agitation towards violence, you're not a Trump fan.  Probably.  Yet you have almost certainly had a bunch of interactions with Trump voters, which probably ranged from perfectly civil and fine, to perhaps even pleasant.  'Cuz as long as you're not talking about politics, we're fine, and most of the time, we're not talking about politics.  One hopes.  Of course, this is the problem with being a political scientist, as I noted at the start of this post.

There is a sort of proto-libertarian notion here.  Less politics = less political conflict, which is not entirely true, but the conflicts within, for example, communist systems were absolutely brutal.  Like, study the history of party purges.  Not kiddin' here.  It's better this way.  Great?  No, but there's somethin' to be said here.

Of course, anarchism isn't exactly a hippie paradise.  We need a system of conflict resolution.  When a system of conflict resolution breaks down, we have a problem.

So here's the thing.  At the end of the day, you have two options.  Words, or violence.  Violence is what happens when a word-based system of conflict resolution stops working because one or both parties cease to accept it.  That's not to say that it occurs because of a symmetric breakdown.  Frequently far from it.  An assault/armed robbery is not exactly a symmetric breakdown in "words as conflict resolution."  If you get mugged, my advice is that you hand over your wallet, phone etc.  Don't try to be a tough guy/vigilante/whatever.  Whatever you have, it isn't worth your life.  That doesn't mean it is justice, but it isn't worth your life.  Your best move, strategically, is to hope that the cops can get the psychopathic piece of fucking shit later, and that the person gets shivved in prison.  Oops, did I type that?  Well, let's put it this way.  If you do get mugged, the cops catch him, he gets tried, convicted and sent to prison, then gets shivved, well, that too is a kind of breakdown in words-as-conflict-resolution, in a very narrow, technical sense.  Are you going to send flowers to your mugger's family?  You gonna shed a tear for your fucking mugger?

I doubt you would.  Have you normalized violence?  Is your attitude contributing?

And of course, all I have done is type.  Words.  Just words.  Right now, somewhere, there is a person ready to read such words from the perspective of the mugger, the prisoner, and not only object to the sequence of ASCII code converted into characters on your screen, but to pose the following construction:  words are violence.  My words.  (Never mind the parallel construction, silence is violence.)

Words are not violence.  Violence has a definition, and words do not meet that definition.  Yet across college campuses, there are video-recorded confrontations in which a supposedly aggrieved party asserts, I feel hurt by something you said, I feel pain, therefore you did violence, and therefore you owe me an apology.  No room for the question of whether or not I have misinterpreted what you said, nor your intent.  You owe me an apology because I said so.

Well, Donald Trump feels hurt that you said he lost the 2020 election.  You better apologize to his fuckin' ass, right?  Oh, does it not work that way?  Yeah, I thought not.

Words are not violence.  Words are our alternative to violence.  Once words are equated to violence, then everything is violence, and we are trapped.

John Stuart Mill, from On Liberty--  He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.

The construction, words are violence, is a demand to be declared the victor without having to listen to anyone else.  That demand is doomed to fail at the societal level.  At an individual level, there will be times when it will be met with self-abasement because the incentives are right.  At the societal level, the demand is more likely to be met with the Rage Against The Machine response, "fuck you, I won't do what you tell me."  As it has been.  And when you declare words to be violence, and rule out discussion, violence is all that remains.

I love words.  (Oh, yeah?  Well, why don't you marry them?  I take thee, words, to be my lawfully wedded wife.  Wives?  There are a lot of words.  That'd be polygamy!  Wait, how would words sign a marriage certificate?  The words are the marriage certificate!  Wow, that's deep!)  Where was I?  Oh, yeah.  Words.  Two choices.  Words, or violence.  War is the continuation of politics by other means, as Clausewitz said.  Whether the scale is interpersonal or international, the point is the same.  Do you not want violence?  Words.  Those are your only options.  Unless you figure out a third.  Good luck with that.

And that means, lefties, you need to be willing to talk.  That means you need to give up this "words are violence" construction.  That means you need to not call everyone who disagrees with you on any minor point a nazi.  This is a big problem on college campuses, where dissent is, shall we say, "discouraged."  There's a word.  And while Biden and the other top leaders of the Democratic Party rightly condemned violent riots in the recent past on the left, you need to not try to excuse it, minimize it, brush it away, or anything like that.  Words need to be the thing.  S.  Things.

Can you negotiate with Paul Gosar?  No.  No words can reach him, nor Donald Trump.  Nor Marjorie Taylor Greene, nor several others.  The first thing we need to do is accept the premise that we are using words, not violence.  Democracy.  Democracy has been rejected by the Republican Party, and that's a terrifying thing.  There are some bad warning signs on the left too, though.  When college campuses start rejecting the idea of "words," Houston, we have a problem.

Because it's words or violence.  That's it.  Pick.  If people keep picking the latter, those of us who like words may need to heed warning, and either run or hide.  Even as daily life right now looks... strangely normal.  And that's an eery thing to balance in one's mind.

Alien Lovestock, "Screamer/Words," from We Are Prepared To Offer You.