Political Violence: To Define and Count
21st September 2025
My comment on a recent post by @SusanQuinn expanded into a post of its own, as is not uncommon for the famously verbose GrannyDude. So here you go:
The only definition of political violence that makes any sense is violence that is undertaken with the intention (however quixotic or insane) of affecting the policies and processes of governance. By this definition, political violence is now overwhelmingly coming from the left. It is not merely a matter of fringe elements either, as the behavior of the so-called “fringe” has been encouraged, aided and rewarded by Democrat politicians and office-holders.
One obvious example: The #BLM Mostly-Peaceful-Protests (MPPs) not only had a peculiar tendency to become very violent, its protesters frequently, openly called for violence. E.g. what do we want, dead cops. Unsurprisingly, homicides against police officers, including deliberate planned assassinations, ensued, perpetrated by persons who explicitly claimed #BLM as motivation. The declared intention of #BLM violence—from speech to action, from doxing to assaults to arson to murder—was to change the way government functions, that is, the way laws are enforced (or not enforced).
To a considerable degree, #BLM violence was successful. Police officers themselves became far more hesitant to do proactive policing, many left the profession altogether and potential new hires decided against such dangerous and thankless employment, leaving law enforcement agencies nationwide understaffed to this day.