Violence, hypocrisy and assassinations. Oh, what a mess we are in

Yet again I find myself watching history unfold on my phone screen on a Saturday night whilst in one of East London’s craft beer bars. This time I am looking at blood pouring from Donald Trump’s head as the Secret Service desperately try to bundle him off stage. He has his fist raised in defiance at the person who took a pot shot at him and the American flag flies above him. It is quite the image. 

My first, slightly drunken, thought is that this is going to lead to an even more severe clamp down on the people who don’t hold the increasingly narrow spectrum of beliefs that the establishment allows. There will be far more scrutiny from police and mainstream media of the views of protesters, Muslims or anyone to the left of Kamala Harris.

Let me be clear: I do not condone someone trying to murder Donald Trump. He’s towards the top of the list of worst people in the world and his toxic effect on politics could be the beginning of humanity’s final tailspin down into fascism or oblivion. We would be better off if he shuffled off the political stage and never appeared in public again. Preferably to count his money and have sex with porn stars, not because he has been shot in the head. I don’t think anyone should be murdered. Not even Trump. 

Violence is everywhere in politics

I could say something obvious, such as “violence has no place in politics” but this would be hypocritical because there is a lot of violence in politics. From the brutal policing of ethnic minorities, in both Britain and the US, to the steep rise in evictions, to war. Violence is everywhere in politics.

That violence is closely entwined with politics is naked in war. The recent war in Gaza and the sensible moderates in the West’s complete inability to restrain the Israeli state in any way, shows that war is unrestrained violence, free of the moderating influences the UN and Geneva convention were supposed to place on it. The idea of a humane and controlled war was a liberal fantasy. War is unrestrained violence of the strong against the week.

This is not to condone any acts of violence. I don’t think we should do politics by shooting each other. I want to get the violence out of politics, by reducing the amount of war, evictions and aggressive policing. Ideally to zero. I’m not condoning violence directed at the people I don’t like. That would be hypocritical. But do you know what’s worse than being a hypocrite? (According to Judith N. Shklar amongst others.) It’s being cruel towards other people, which is what violence is.

Threatening students

Here’s an example of the establishment legitimating violence against people they don’t like. In 1986 it was considered acceptable to threaten students with violence for their planned political action. Warden and Fellows of Wadham College wrote a letter to students planning political action. It stated:

“Dear Gentlemen: We note your threat to take what you call ‘direct action’ unless your demands are immediately met. We feel it is only sporting to remind you that our governing body includes three experts in chemical warfare, two ex-commandos skilled with dynamite and torturing prisoners, four qualified marksmen in both small arms and rifles, two ex-artillerymen, one holder of the Victoria Cross, four karate experts and a chaplain. The governing body has authorised me to tell you that we look forward with confidence to what you call a ‘confrontation’, and I may say, with anticipation.”

If this isn’t a threat of violence, then what is? This is just one example of when it was fine for the establishment to openly threaten people it didn’t like with naked violence of an extreme kind. The type you would find in a war. 

Contemporary relevance

This letter was reproduced in The Knowledge recently (for the uninitiated, The Knowledge is a news email from The Week, which claims to be politically neutral but spends more time praising Trump than Keir Starmer). Presumably reprinting it means the letter has some relation to current events.

How do we interpret this? It’s either a joke or a real suggestion as to how rebellious students should be treated. It’s probably intended to be funny by implying that lefty students (of both today and 1986) aren’t tough enough to fight actual soldiers, so they should just shut up and go back to their books and racking up huge debts that they will never be able to pay back. At this point it’s worth remembering most of The Knowledge’s readers went to uni for free, but enjoy sniggering at students. This is probably why the letter was reprinted.

If we are taking this seriously on any level, it’s worth noting that chemical warfare and torturing prisoners are war crimes in an actual war, which protesting is not. Did they really plan to release sarin gas in the middle of Oxford? Or use artillery for that matter? It seems like a dumb, empty threat to me. Not worthy of reprinting. Also, I don’t think “we have people who can and will commit war crimes on our staff” is the boast Wadham College think it is.

Trumps’ violence

The point is that it was considered acceptable to at least joke about using “qualified marksmen” against student protesters in 1986 (or today, judging by the reprinting of this in a supposedly politically neutral newsletter) but it’s not acceptable to use marksmen against Trump. I don’t think it’s acceptable to shoot Trump, but neither is it acceptable to threaten students with chemical weapons, artillery and torture. Or to imply that all young people are softies because they wouldn’t face down such a threat.

Trump is also an extraordinarily violent politician. He has joked about shooting someone on 5th Avenue. He has used dehumanising language, describing undocumented migrants as “animals,” which is likely to lead to violence. He talks about a “bloodbath” if he doesn’t get elected. He fermented a riot that tried to violently overthrow the government; although we all pretend that didn’t happen and that Trump is just a normal right-wing politician.

One of his white supremacist supporters also killed a woman protesting against white supremacy with his car, another thing we pretend didn’t happen. Trump is not a stranger to political violence, just to receiving it. I’m sure that Trump and his supporters feel that it is acceptable to mete out violence to people they don’t like (from protesters to migrants) and that it’s not acceptable to be violent towards them. Any centrists, or anyone of any political persuasion, condemning the Trump assassination attempt must acknowledge his violence. As this article does.

The people it’s acceptable to be violent towards

Owen Jones is the only British journalist I can think of who has been beaten up. Boris Johnson also once conspired to have a different journalist beaten up and it didn’t stop him getting elected Prime Minister. This shows who is allowed to mete out violence and who should receive violence. As always, the politicians advocating for violence, from Trump to the uncritical supporters of Israel, don’t think they should receive violence but that other people should.

There has always been people it’s acceptable to do violence to and people it’s not acceptable to do violence to. Oil companies do huge damage to the natural world, but when there’s a march the police line up to protect their buildings. I know this from experience. Social media is full of threats to Just Stop Oil activists for daring to inconvenience people and for pointing out that we’re killing the whole world.

Good to know that it is acceptable for Trump to encourage violence but not receive violence. It’s nice to make all this official. For the historians. Assuming humanity continues long enough for people to write history about 2024.

What comes next

If anything, his attempted murder will help Trump win the election. He’s just been officially nominated by the Republicans and chosen JD Vance as his running mate (a man who once described Trump as “America’s Hitler” and will now parrot anything Trump says, no matter how deranged).

At least Joe Biden has done the right thing and decided not to run again. He was too old and would only have thrown the election to Trump. If there is any hope in stopping Trump (and all methods short of assassination need to be deployed to stop him) then it lies in the Democrats, and all Americans who don’t want a dictator, rallying around someone (anyone) capable of stopping Trump winning in November.

Oh, what a mess we are in. American democracy is on the line. Most likely this is just the beginning of more violence to come. Most likely that violence will come from Trump and his supporters. Then it will be politely explained away by centrists as normal politics, while anyone who tries to oppose Trump, and his rising tide of violence, is chastised as the real extremist.

Donald Trump picture taken by Gage Skidmore and used under creative commons.