Violence Is the Last Refuge of the Incompetent

I am fond of a saying Isaac Asimov coined in his Foundation series: violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.  It’s used as an insult towards those who jump to violence because they cannot—or will not—work through their issues otherwise.  As our country grapples with the ramifications of the attempted assassination of former President Trump, my thoughts turn to Asimov’s line and what comes next.

It only took hours after the assassination attempt for both sides of the political spectrum to point the finger at each other as the root cause.  Meanwhile, you have elected officials calling for a civil war if their guy loses the presidential election, and the Republican presidential nominee refusing to discount political violence if he loses.  These are not actions to make one comfortable with the direction things are going as we head towards November.

As violent rhetoric increases, it leads to despair.  Why should we try to be peaceful if the other side refuses?  What’s the point in the rule of law if the other side willfully denies its existence?  We may not be over the edge yet, but we are certainly flirting with it.

Political violence, however, is never the answer.  In fact, we should use the proper definition for it: terrorism.  Too often we disregard terrorism as something that happens “over there” but the reality is it happens here in our country as well.  Anytime someone uses violence (or the threat of it) to pursue political goals, they are engaging in an act of terrorism. 

Attempting to kill a presidential nominee.  Naming half of the nation evil murderers.  Calling for a civil war if your side loses an election.  These are acts designed to stoke terror and fear.  While we don’t know the motives of the shooter, we do know the motives for the violent rhetoric that has followed—political sway. 

Political violence has no positive end state.  Its results sit on a spectrum of bad outcomes.  The best case is that no one dies, but the rule of law is weakened as people feel justified in undertaking terrorist actions like that in the first place.  The worse case is an escalation spiral that leads to major conflict, like how the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand sparked off World War One. 

The following months will likely fall in the middle of that spectrum.  I doubt the nation will snap out of its fever dream of partisanship anytime soon, and I pray that things have not deteriorated to the point where we have a modern-day Fort Sumter event.  That said, there is plenty to be concerned about regardless of where the final political violence tally lies. 

For one, it hands Russia and China golden material for their global propaganda campaigns.  Every moment a democracy looks chaotic is one authoritarian regimes happily use to push why their system is superior.  We also should worry about how extremists on both ends of the political spectrum are inspired by such acts to carry out terrorist acts of their own.

This is generally where people say, “Sure, violence seems bad, but what if there’s no other option?  Are we supposed to just accept [insert political bogeyman here] ruining our country?”  To that argument, I have two counterpoints.  First, the data clearly show that nonviolent campaigns to enact political change—even in authoritarian regimes—were ten times more likely to achieve their goals than violent ones, even if the initial campaign initially seemed unsuccessful. 

Second, law only exists because we believe in it.  There is nothing written into the fabric of our genome that dictates whether or not I will jaywalk, shoplift, or commit assault.  I follow these laws because I believe they are right and just, and because they align with my values.  If someone starts believing that the other side are all evil murderers, that sending death threats to the family members of people with different political beliefs is an acceptable weekend activity, or that assassinating elected officials is the only recourse to fix what they perceive as a problem, then they have allowed their values to shift so far off the mark I can’t help but pity what a dark and twisted world they have created for themselves.

When President Reagan was shot in 1981, he is purported to have said to the surgery team “I hope you’re all Republicans,” to which the lead surgeon—a liberal Democrat—replied “Today, Mr. President, we are all Republicans.”  Americans can be better than this current atmosphere of political vitriol.  We should be better than this.  Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, and there is no rational eloquent enough to hide spilled blood.