Beeple, what follows here is mostly an emotional tirade against unfairness and hypocrisy. This is just my uneducated opinion backed by 5 minutes of googling, so it may also be wrong. All this to say that I am biased, and am willing to be corrected, if more accurate information is presented.

The events of the past few days has only further solidified the terribly powerful political ratchet effect. The American right jumped off a cliff in 2016, and are currently in a state of “sink or swim”. The abyssal coalition of white supremacists, Christian nationalists, tech oligarchs, hyper capitalists, racists, xenophobes, accelerationists, political nihilists, and out-loud fascists is being held together by duct tape, a prayer and the “charisma” of a punctured 75 inch can of spray tan. The destruction of this coalition almost feels inevitable, and when it does happen, there is a strong chance that they will not only cause structural problems for the USA, but also for the entire world. Perhaps even more frighteningly, if this coalition somehow holds beyond the Cheeto man, the era of enlightenment principles is probably over.

Meanwhile the establishment American left, instead of combating this nightmare blunt rotation continues to hand wring about “political violence” being committed by extremists.

So, what is political violence really? If you ask an establishment liberal, my guess is that they would say something like the first and third line of the Wikipedia definition for political violence,

“Political violence is violence which is perpetrated in order to achieve political goals… violence which is used by violent non-state actors against states and civilians (kidnappings, assassinations, terrorist attacks, torture, psychological and/or guerrilla warfare). It can also describe politically motivated violence which is used by violent non-state actors against a state (rebellion, rioting, treason, or coup d’état)”

But what about the second sentence?

“It can include violence which is used by a state against other states (war), violence which is used by a state against civilians and non-state actors (forced disappearance, psychological warfare, police brutality, targeted killings, torture, ethnic cleansing, or genocide)”

I am going to pick Ezra Klein, the loudest liberal with a googlable history, as an example to make this point.

Things that Ezra Klein considers political violence,

Things he seemingly does not consider political violence

The closest he gets to considering structural political violence as political violence is when individuals and small groups of white nationalists commit violence.

Now that the whining about hypocrisy is over, let me get to the actual point of substance - The cudgel of political violence must be used against every establishment liberal who claims to be against political violence, but never supports structural change to the state. The next time a woman dies due to horrific pro birth laws in red state, the next time a mother is separated from her child by ICE agents, the next time police officers shoot first and ask questions later, the next time liberals fail to expand Medicaid, but do expand the military budget, we must call it what it is - Political violence.

Maybe I am being naive here - I did not invent the idea of structural violence. Leftists of all stripes have been screaming their lungs out about the consent of the governed, and yet very little has changed structurally. Despite this, I think it is fundamental that we continue to fight, to call out this double standard.

I apologize in advance if I made any mistakes, please do share your opinions on this below.