Political Violence and Threats Have Systemic Effects on Those Seeking Power

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I was just noodling around the noosphere yesterday, as I frequently do, and the confluence of a few pieces of media struck me as something to share with you all as a commentary and warning about our current political moment.

First, is the excellent profile in political courage by Johnathan Rauch about his friend, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer. In it, Rauch explores not only the cojones it takes for Richer to be the Reality Ally in the room for his faction (a reference to reproducible scientific findings on peer pressure’s effect on individual willingness to accept untruths that go against one’s own direct knowledge and perception) but also how the #BigLie functions to shut out of the wreck of the Republican Party anyone who is willing to stand up to Trump and his endless stream of lies and disinformation.

That reading connected deeply with an excellent piece of reporting in the NYTimes about how the Republican party has begun to accept, and even use, threats and intimidation as a political organizing principle and tactic of control and coercion. This is exemplified by several examples in the article but strikes again here in AZ with the recent grotesque aminated tweet of AZ Rep. Paul Gosar depicting himself murdering AOC. I’m not going to link to it, but I’m sure you can find it if you haven’t already seen it.

As is too often the case, it seems the worst impulses of the nascent (maybe not even all that nascent anymore…) fascist authoritarian movement underway in the Republican party, has manifested here in AZ early. We do, after all, have two of the leading lights of the new fascist front, Kari Lake and insurrectionist Oath Keeper Mark Finchem, leading the polls for the Statewide GOP ticket in ’22 as Governor and Secretary of State.

Finally, in search of some consolation following these tales of political radicalization and dysfunction, I listened to a recent episode of the refreshingly non-middlebrow podcast Intelligence Squared. It features journalist and author Brian Klass (who wrote a disturbingly insightful trio of books on authoritarianism over the past few years) about how power corrupts those it settles upon and what we can do as societies to counter those well-documented effects. He also touches upon the effect of threats of violence on the self-selection of political elites.

So, I invite you to spend some time with me contemplating our new political reality and how we might usefully respond to these troubling trends. Certainly, one thing we must do is not pull any punches or talk around the issue. We have to face it squarely, call it out, and demand those supporting the GOP now confront and answer for their party’s behavior. It was deeply disappointing to see how blithely some supporters of Gosar in his district brushed off or excused Gosar’s disturbingly toxic behavior:

Surely, we Americans can do better than this. I sincerely warn against any reactionary coarsening of our own political behavior, or tolerance of violently coercive behavior, in response to this trend. That way lies madness.

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11 thoughts on “Political Violence and Threats Have Systemic Effects on Those Seeking Power”

  1. Hello All! I think Nazis for many years did similar kinds of intimidation and then moved into jailing, torturing and killing of political opponents. I fear we are in a downward spiral. One way to stop it is with impeachment of a good number of people by the House and removing those House and Senate member who helped with the Jan. 6 “effort.” And the US DOJ should already be starting investigations and prosecutions. They should be impeached first. Later we would find out what the Senate does with the impeachments.

    Nancy Pelosi is fearful of impeachment and she has been for decades. America may lose its democracy partly because of her “fears.” Then we will have real fears with Trump and his kind in office for another 4 years when some of these men and women probably think Trump being President for Life has a nice ring to it.

    Oh, it is so hard to run a democracy and nearly all countries that try such usually blow it.

    Peace! Buzz Davis, Vets for Peace in Tucson

    • You are right, Buzz. That’s the fascist playbook: start with stochastic and deniable violence, move to open street violence, then organized militias, then take over the instruments of state violence. Always the way…

  2. Speaking of domestic terrorism, I don’t recall you posting about the billions of dollars in property damage that the peaceful demonstrators caused during the last year of social justice demonstrations. Also, it is unfortunate that the juvenile name calling has spread from blog commentators to posters. So much for intellectual standards, Michael.

    • And there goes the ‘whataboutism’… You have anything other than distraction and changing the subject, Johnny? No? Didn’t think so…

    • Just curious here Johnny. What exactly is your source for the ‘fact’ that BLM protests caused ‘billions of dollars in property damage’? Don’t have that either? Didn’t think so…

    • Yeah, Phony John Kavanagh, please show your work.

      “Billions”. LOL.

      How much damage was done by Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and Boogaloo freaks trying to blame BLM folks and start a civil war?

      A bunch. That’s the actual number.

      What, they don’t report that on the TV news you watch?

      Intellectual eunuch.

    • Hey John, it’s Monday morning, were you going to show us where you got the “billions” from?

      It would go a long way to restoring some of your credibility.

    • Just checking in to see if John Kavanagh was going to correct his “billions of dollars”, um, misstatement? Lie?

      Not sure what you call it?

      Fox News style propaganda? Something he read on Facebook and never bothered to think about beyond “sounds right”?

      I don’t see a reply here yet, I’ll check back later, I’m sure he’s working on it.

    • Oh, what a surprise. Johnny wants to change the subject rather than condemn his party’s flirtation with terrorist tactics.

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