I got tired of waiting for the American free press to provide an analysis of political violence in the country. It is a huge omission in day-to-day discussions of the coarsening of American politics. I was prompted to think about it as I was out driving around today listening to stories of election officials being threatened and manipulated as the federal election approaches, some to the point that they will no longer do the work that they have been doing for years. In a long-standing democracy why is this not front-page news? Where is the analysis of the problem? Who has an interest in suppressing the vote and why are they continuing to do this? At the same time, I heard about a poll today saying that most Americans will not trust the election results – even though they are the most secure at any time in history and there is no evidence of suspicious activity.
Elections are not the only places where political violence
is acted out in the US. Abortion clinics
– even during the days of Roe were places where women were harassed and doctors were shot and killed. Schools, teachers, librarians, and school
board members are targets for similar politics with threats, work exhaustion,
and ultimately moral injury when they are shouted down and threatened for doing
the work that they are trained and licensed to do. Public health officials are attacked for
providing the best possible public health advice just because some politicians
don’t like it or need to cover their own incompetence. Since when is it acceptable for politicians
to be inciting this level of violence against competent citizens with high
levels of competence – who are just doing their jobs?
Before proceeding I will define what I mean about
violence. The same people who incite it
frequently minimize it after the fact using the rhetorical sleight of hand: “It
is free speech and I can say whatever I want to say.” Without invoking the famous Supreme Court
quote – let me provide a little detail about definitions. First, violence or aggression does not
require physical act. Aggression has
components that occur on a strictly verbal level and aggression toward property
or inanimate objects as well as self (2).
If you have ever witnessed any of those forms of aggression, you know
why it is important. It has a direct
impact on you that can be long-lasting. Threats alone can significantly affect
your sense of physical and mental well-being. Many states have terroristic
threat statutes that can result in legal action before any physical contact
occurs (see Minnesota statute below). Threats alone are a signal that physical aggression may occur and in
many states it can result in visits from the police, orders for protection, and
in the case of mental illness – involuntary holds and civil commitment.
Interestingly, the political violence I described typically results in the
victims trying to protect themselves.
What does interpersonal violence look like? On a verbal basis it can be angry shouting like we have seen many times in televised school board meetings. That can include name calling, personal insults, and profanities. As the verbal aggression increases the insults gets worse to the point of threatening physical violence. That is evident in routinely televised road and customer rage incidents. Whether it culminates in physical violence or not is not the point. For years the police tended to ignore verbal aggression and operated on the basis that the only type of aggression that counts is physical aggression. Over the past 20 years there has been a more enlightened approach since verbal aggression is harmful and predicts physical aggression. That has been associated with domestic violence and terroristic threat statutes. In the main areas I have discussed the violence has increased to the point that the Department of Justice is aware of it and successfully prosecutes cases (3,4,5).
Social media has become another source of aggression and interpersonal violence. The popular press documents an explosion of hate speech on X (formerly known as Twitter) while the new owner Elon Musk denies it and claims to have reinstated both right wing and left wing posters as a "centrist". In the meantime academics debate the definition of hate speech (6) but were still able to find 91 papers written about it on Twitter alone. Violence and hate speech are probably best analyzed on a case by case basis and in my estimation there is no better example than the last two chapters of Anthony Fauci's book On Call (7). In it, Fauci clearly describes how providing the best possible public health advice to the White House angered President Trump and the non-experts he hired to manage the pandemic. Fauci was politically scapegoated, derided by other Republicans and MAGA, terrorized at work and home, and ultimately threatened with incarceration for providing historically outstanding public health service to the American people. MAGA politicians are still threatening to incarcerate him even though he is retired. I encounter people to this day who "hate" Dr. Fauci - not based on any semblance of reality but the gross misinformation provided to them by MAGA. That entire sequence of events flowed from Trump's anger that the scientific facts (masking, herd immunity, immunization) did not fit with what he wanted to tell the public. This is exactly how political violence occurs.
From a political standpoint, this violence and aggression is
often rationalized as “free speech” and it is not. Violence is often rationalized as the absence of physical contact. That really minimizes the impact of significant unprovoked threats that can include threats to bodily integrity. The current elimination of gun laws makes some
of these situations even more dangerous.
To cite one example, there was an armed protest in front of a director
of public health’s home and in this case the police did nothing. How would anyone feel about have a group
armed with assault rifles outside of your home saying there will be no
violence “for now” because you are doing your legal job.
What I find missing from most of these discussions is the
overall cause. I do not think there is
any doubt that it originates with one party or more specifically movement and
their aggressive rhetoric essentially because they have no useful policy. That
is as obvious as the continued denials of the 2020 Presidential election
results and the high percentages of people polled within that party (88%) that have
doubts about the current election. We
have seen the effects of their propaganda, repeated lies, and political violence
on these systems and it is completely unnecessary. It also causes significant degradation of these systems when long time competent professionals leave because of the threats and harassment.
Political violence in the US is quite literally the elephant
in the room. And it is time to start
talking about it that way. Where is the press with this analysis?
Supplementary 2: My wife and I voted at City Hall today. It was technically an "in-person absentee" ballot. The process was identical to the one 4 years ago. We provided several levels of ID including - Driver's License number, address, phone numbers, email address, and Social Security Number. The election official was separated from us in a separate room and all discussion occurred through a heavy glass window with a portal. We presented an identification form. When that information was confirmed the election official printed a label with verification that was affixed to the top of our ballots. We were advised to complete the ballot - seal it inside 2 envelopes using tape provided at the voting stations and then return it to her. When we returned the ballot she personally signed each ballot with her name and address. There was no public access to a ballot box or voting machine and the entire process was airtight. I did notice that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is still on the Minnesota ballot along with several other third party candidates.
Supplementary 3: Former President Trump's ad in 1989 directed at the Central Park 5 is another good example of political rhetoric obscuring the facts. In this ad he discusses hating the suspects and wanting them executed. They were subsequently exonerated based on DNA evidence and won a $41 M lawsuit against the city of New York for malicious prosecution.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6131533-trumpdeathpenaltyad05011989
Supplementary 4: Updated graphic to include a number of false attacks on the Biden Harris administration and their handling of hurricane emergencies. Many were ultimately refuted by Republicans including Republican Governors. First responders and aid workers were described as demoralized. This occurs two weeks after Elon Musk commented that "no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala" Musk subsequently said he was joking and removed the comment from Twitter but said he would not retract it. The White House condemned it for condoning political violence. In an age where you can not joke about bombs or terrorists on airplanes "jokes" about assassination should obviously be out of bounds. I have seen people interrogated by the Secret Service for similar comments.
Addendum: There are so many of these incidents of violence out there I decided not to try to reference them all. They can easily be found by Google searching the main heading like "election worker violence" and secondary elements. You will get a lot of references and very little attribution to the political cause other than "divisiveness". That word in itself should be telling because it is one of the main strategies of one party.
1: Meghna Chakrabarti. On Point.
"Elections officials endure protests, death threats. Here are their
stories." https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510053/on-point
This is the radio program I heard this afternoon.
2: Yudofsky SC,
Silver JM, Jackson W, Endicott J, Williams D. The Overt Aggression Scale for
the objective rating of verbal and physical aggression. Am J Psychiatry. 1986
Jan;143(1):35-9
3: USDOJ Election
Threats Task Force: https://www.justice.gov/voting/election-threats
4: USDOJ. Justice Department Addresses Violent Threats
Against School Officials and Teachers
5: Fraser MR.
Harassment of Health Officials: A Significant Threat to the Public's Health. Am
J Public Health. 2022 May;112(5):728-730. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2022.306797
6: Mansur Z, Omar N, Tiun S. Twitter hate speech detection: A systematic review of methods, taxonomy analysis, challenges, and opportunities. IEEE Access. 2023 Jan 25;11:16226-49.
7: Fauci A. On Call: A Doctor's Journey in Public Service. New York, New York: Viking, 2024: 374-455.
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