Political violence: time to take it seriously

Democracy has always been a rough business. The red lines along the floor of the House of Commons in London were first put there to prevent Royalists and Roundheads in the 17th century from drawing their swords against each other. Parliaments have been burned down in more modern times, as was the Reichstag in Berlin in 1933. Even in today’s more genteel political environment, fist fights in the Australian parliament have been commonplace. Assassinations of members of parliament have been rare but not unheard of.  In recent times the IRA has tried to blow up the British cabinet in Brighton, killed Airey Neave, and other extremists have murdered Labour MP, Jo Cox and Conservative MP, David Amess. Outside on the streets, popular anger against corrupt or out of touch governments has led to the occupation and ransacking of the presidential palace in Sri Lanka and, recently, the ouster of the Prime Minister of Bangladesh. Government for the people by the people has always implied that groups of citizens would from time to time seek to bypass democracy through elected representatives and formal constitutional and parliamentary processes by resorting to the referendum of street power, sometimes violent.  Some, particularly on the left, would say that popular protests, strikes and civil disturbances and disobedience campaigns were the only way to make the ossified governing classes accept the need for social reform and workers’ rights. The Chartists in early 19th century Britain or the various Marxist movements and trade unions growing out of the First and Second Internationals are oft cited examples. On the right, paramilitary groups like Mussolini’s Black Shirts, Hitler’s Brown Shirts or the Ligues in inter-war France have tried to undermine democracy through mass violence and riots, ushering in dictatorships as the only way to restore social peace. Healthy democracies can never be immune from these occasional outbursts of anger, but they usually manage to be resilient and find ways to absorb political violence back into the regular system of parliamentary government. If they do not, revolution can be the consequence. But more often than not, the crisis passes, and normal politics resume, whether under the same government or a new one, as violent groups decide to pursue their grievances through the process of constitutional legality. That was the theory – at least until now.

But what if widespread political violence and a culture of revolt against constitutional norms and practices become the rule rather than the exception? Will our robust and healthy democracies based on the rule of law turn into authoritarian banana republics, gripped by extremist ideologies and the ability of dictators to use force and intimidation to cower their opponents, as happened in Europe, Latin America and parts of Asia in the 1930s?  Is a climate of distrust and disrespect for elected government gradually sliding into an acceptance of political violence as a legitimate form of popular fight back against western democracies perceived as elitist and uncaring about the fate of what Franklin Roosevelt once called “The Invisible Man”? Perhaps it is not yet possible to be categorical about this. Yet the signs of concern are everywhere and have been growing since the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the sub-prime mortgage failures in 2008 produced the financial crisis that shattered confidence in the competence of bankers and politicians and impoverished millions of voters in Europe and North America.

This year will see more elections than ever before in a single 12 month period. A total of 67 countries with a combined population of 3.4 billion have been to the polls already in 2024. Another 440 million across the globe are due to follow them before year’s end, and the sudden collapse of the government in Iceland this past weekend has just added another 393, 396 thousand to that number. That is half of humanity, and thus, this exceptional election year is a good moment to do a stock take of the health of democracy around the world. The bad news is that according to the US-based Freedom House, which for years has been tracking the quality of democracies and whether their elections are fully free and fair, the number of countries where freedom has declined is greater than where it has improved. Moreover, this has been the case for the past 18 years leading to a situation where one in three people are voting in countries where democratic standards have deteriorated significantly in the past 5 years. Yet the news is not all bad. According to Freedom House, in 42 of the 67 countries which have held elections so far this year, the process has been reasonably free and fair, with the outcome reflecting more or less what the people have decided. Voter turnout has also been positive, being higher this year on average than in the previous two decades and demonstrating that voters may be frustrated with the political process but still want to engage in it. This was notably the case in important global powers such as France, Mexico and South Korea and, interestingly, also for the European Parliament elections last June, an event which notoriously does not get EU citizens particularly excited. Turnout was up by 3% in those countries that were considered to be flawed or partial democracies. Disinformation is, these days, a major preoccupation for all of us concerned with the integrity of elections. Yet although it is increasingly present, persistent and sophisticated, it does not seem to have played a decisive role in shaping the election results in the majority of the polls thus far. This may be a hopeful sign that voters do not want to be manipulated or taken for fools and that they are learning to spot manifest disinformation and ignore it. Time will tell. Another hopeful sign is that the incumbents have been thrown out of office in well over half of the elections as people have voted for change (or at least to give the opposition a chance to have a go). Some long standing governments, like the Conservatives in Britain or the People Power Party in South Korea received a veritable drubbing. Others, like the ANC in South Africa or the BJP party of Narendra Modi in India, lost their parliamentary majority for the first time in decades. They have had to form coalitions and share power. Leaders like Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, who have been well nigh invincible at the national level recently,  showed in local election results that they are still unable to overcome dogged opposition resistance in major cities like Istanbul and Ankara. In all cases thus far, the rejected incumbents have stepped down gracefully and not claimed that the election was fraudulent, tried to stay in power illegally or sent their supporters to storm the parliament and force legislators to invalidate the election results as Donald Trump did 4 years ago in Washington. Yet where dictators who do not eschew violence are determined to stay on, come what may, they showed no hesitation in postponing the election sine die, as in Mali and Burkina Faso, or engineering absolutely unbelievable scores, such as the 88% for President Putin in March, the 99% for Paul Kagame of Rwanda in July or the 95% for Abdelmadjid Tebboune in Algeria. Even Nicolas Maduro, the long time dictator of Venezuela, only claimed a little over 50%. But it was still a massive falsification of the real result and followed by his usual campaign of repression, which forced his election opponent to flee to Spain. So the 2024 elections, despite some positive signs, still constitute a mixed bag. There are strong indications of democratic erosion, unmoveable incumbents and military coups, particularly in Africa, and evidence of leaders who do not even bother, or feel under sufficient international pressure, to organize half serious polls.

Yet we all know that there is one election overshadowing all the many others in 2024, which is not only the most important for global politics but also the one that will make the weather when it comes to whether we feel good or bad about the future of democracy. Obviously it is the one on November 5 in the United States. Given their impact on the rest of the world, all US elections are especially important, and many US watchers abroad would like to be able to cast a vote in them, too. But indisputably, given the very different visions for America’s future and its role on the global stage offered by Kamala Harris and Donald Trump,  2024 is going to be a particularly watershed election, including when it comes to upholding the core principles of US democracy: free and fair voting in line with the rules, impeccable and honest counting of votes, the right to vote fully respected, no intimidation of voters or interference in their choices, the ability to campaign freely and openly without the threat of violence, and immediate respect of the election outcome in the form of the loser giving way gracefully and not resorting to dishonest legal wrangles in an attempt to delay formal certification of the election result. We used to take these things for granted in US elections, but no longer after the 2020 election when Donald Trump refused to recognise his clear defeat in the Electoral College and summoned violent protest, as well as an avalanche of lies and disinformation together with blatant pressure on state election officials, in an attempt to stay on in the White House. It is in this context that the issue of political violence in the United States linked to the democratic process enshrined in the Constitution becomes so worrying.

Although often presenting itself as a global bastion of democracy and freedom, the United States has had more than its fair share of political violence in its two-and-a-half centuries of existence. Three of its Presidents have been assassinated, and others, like Ronald Reagan, were shot but fortunately survived. There have been two assassination attempts against Donald Trump on the campaign trail and a third incident of someone going to a Trump rally with numerous passports and a car boot packed with high velocity rifles. In recent times two US Congress members, Gabby Gifford of Arizona and Steve Scalise have been wounded in assassination attempts. The husband of former House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, was beaten up badly in their San Francisco home. And the mob breaking into the Capitol on January 6 was out to kill or hurt Vice President Dick Cheney, who was there to formally certify Joe Biden’s election victory, as well as any other members of Congress they could get their hands on. 1968 was a particularly bad year for political violence in the United States with the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy and the Black Power leader, Malcolm X.  And although the country has suffered a number of terrorist attacks directed from abroad, most notably in the Al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, arguably home-grown political violence has been far more persistent and endemic. There were the postal bombs sent by the Unibomber, the anthrax attacks against a Senate building in Washington, forcing its evacuation for months, and most violently of all, the bombing of the Alfred P Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995 by far-right extremist, Timothy McVeigh. It killed 169 Americans. But there have been many other ethnically driven attacks as well in more recent times. Against Hispanics in a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas; against Jews in a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Blacks in a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.  But these acts of political violence are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to identifying and assessing a more diffuse and generalised culture of political violence. In the past, violent protests were usually the work of tiny groups, which sprang up one minute, made headlines, and disappeared forever the next. Groups such as the Shiners, the Weathermen, the Black Panthers and the Symbionese Liberation Army, which famously recruited into its ranks the heiress Patti Hearst after taking her hostage. Yet today, by contrast, the threat of political violence has become more permanent, and many more Americans of all stripes are participating. For instance, since 2015, threats against Congress members have increased tenfold to 8000 so far this year. Forty percent of public officials at state and municipal levels in the United States have reported threats against them or attempts at intimidation and abuse. Threats against judges have increased from 179 recorded in 2015 to 400 in 2023. Since 2010 domestic extremism has been part of the US National Security Strategy. And for good reason. It has become commonplace for gun-totting biker gangs to line up outside polling stations, or for far-right activists to try to interfere with the work of election officials or vote counters by claiming a false right of oversight over their work. Ironically the targets of these acts of intimidation are not Democrats but moderate Republicans deemed to be not sufficiently loyal to “the cause”. Biker gangs ride into towns to disrupt LGBT parades and provoke violence. In Charlottesville, Virginia, a rally of white nationalists gathered for a Unite the Right demonstration against the removal of a Confederate statue. They marched through the campus of the University of Virginia, provoking a counter-demonstration which soon led to violence with deaths and injuries when a white supremacist drove his car into the crowd.

This type of political violence doesn’t come out of nowhere. It is abetted and legitimised by political leaders who falsely claim that it represents the “will of the people” but use it for their political ends. The tactic is not to support violence openly but to claim to “understand” it as the inevitable reaction of the common people if the leader’s political demands are not met. This is known as the “dog whistle” whereby a political leader pretends to distance himself/ herself from violent groups while simultaneously encouraging them by suggesting that their anger is justified or somehow inevitable. Donald Trump has done precisely this and is already in his first presidential campaign. At a rally in 2016, he hinted that the “Second Amendment people” (ie those defending the right to bear arms) should take direct action against Presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, who was advocating tighter gun control. By calling on far right militia groups like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters to “stand ready”, Trump has not only messaged his ability but also his intention to ramp up political violence if the institutions of government or his Democratic opponents try to stand in his way. The most egregious example of this was the insurrection against the US Congress on January 6, 2021, when Trump brought thousands of his most extreme supporters to Washington and then held a rally outside the White House where he encouraged them to march on the Capitol to “stop the steal “ of the election results. Five people died in the assault and Congressional offices were ransacked. The investigation that the FBI and Justice Department conducted on January 6 revealed that the assault was not spontaneous but had been planned in advance by the various far-right groups involved. They descended on Washington with guns and social media networking and coordination. Since January 6, the House of Representatives carried out an investigation of its own in which Republicans refused to participate -except a handful of principled Republicans, such as Lynne Cheney. Trump has been indicted for his role in the riot, and hundreds of the rioters have been identified and have had to face trial. This is the largest single prosecution in the history of the United States. Interestingly, many of the rioters have a military or police background, which means that they have organisational and training skills as well as being used to handling weapons. The worry now is that all this could happen again if Trump loses on November 5 and again falsely claims fraud and tries, like last time, to use a combination of court cases, pressure on state election officials and street violence to stop his opponent from taking office. He has already proposed that the United States Army be deployed across the country to supervise the voting – something that is not its constitutional role, particularly when no state of emergency has been declared for a normal election process.

In the event, it is unlikely that January 6 will be repeated. The key players, such as the Proud Boys and the Oathkeepers, have been disbanded, and their leaders have been put behind bars. Security around the Capitol building has been stepped up. The Capitol Police have been given more resources, and the head of this force has the power to now call in the National Guard as backup in a crisis. Consequently, the far right protest movement has dispersed and migrated to the individual states, many of which are under Republican control, where they have sympathisers in state administrations, legislatures and law enforcement. This step also reflects the growing trend in the United States to wrest power from the federal government in Washington back to the individual states, as in the numerous state laws restricting abortion rights or dealing with illegal migrants. For instance there is a group calling itself “Constitutional Sheriffs” who claim the (false) right to enforce the law within their state jurisdictions without the “interference” of the federal law enforcement agencies such as the FBI or the Department of Homeland Security. Far right groups have attacked state legislatures as well, as in the plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan and the insurrection at the state house in Portland, Oregon. If Trump wins the election, he has said that he will free the January 6 insurrectionists. The  militias may then well re-emerge. Yet a win for Kamala Harris is not likely to calm the situation as Trump almost certainly will claim that the election was rigged and call on his supporters to take action. The closeness of the result in several of the key swing states that will decide the election will almost inevitably increase the opportunity to sow divisions and complicate the transition. The US could be in chaos for weeks or even months, and much of it will depend on Congress stepping up to its responsibilities, like in January 2021.

Yet political violence is not confined to the United States. In Britain, the month of August was marred by rioting in Southport and several major cities after white nationalists, many members of the English Defence League, tried to storm mosques and hotels housing migrants, causing several injuries among the police forces trying to restore order. The trigger for the violence was false social media posts, with some coming from as far away as Pakistan, which attributed a knife attack on young girls attending a dance class to a recently arrived illegal migrant when the perpetrator was in fact a youth born and brought up in the UK and who lived nearby. The riots were not a local occurrence as the anti-migrant protesters travelled long distances to get to Southport using social media to coordinate their activities. Germany has had issues too, with far right, anti-Muslim activists in the Pegida movement setting fire to migrant hostels, particularly in the eastern part of the country.

Sociologists and political scientists will ponder the deep lying reasons for political violence. Economic insecurity in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis is one factor. Inflated anti-migrant rhetoric has certainly coarsened the political environment and presented migrants as security threats. Politics in Western democracies has gravitated away from the traditional economic and social issues towards more cultural and identity questions, particularly on the right. This has been wrapped up at the extreme end by a return of ideology and half baked philosophy regarding the “Great Replacement” in which Muslims, Blacks and Hispanics (and better educated professional women too) will progressively take the power away from traditional white male domination. Anti-semitism is never far away when these far right ideologues re-emerge. It is prevalent in European movements but tempered in the United States by strong support among Republicans for Israel, which is seen as a bulwark among Christian Evangelicals against Iran and Arab Islamists and jihadist terror organisations.

However, this article is not a place to explore in depth the possible causes and roots of far-right political violence. Undoubtedly, it is a complex issue and far more space and analysis would be needed to do it justice. What matters here is what the political responses can and should be. Three things for immediate action stand out.

The first is to give more resources to our overloaded police forces and intelligence services to track and investigate far-right movements. The Director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, testifying to Congress recently, said that domestic violence was now the biggest threat to the United States. Given the more widespread and diffuse nature of far right radicalism, with more groups in more places, keeping watch will need increases in personnel and technology. Potential left wing radicalism is a factor as well, particularly in parts of Europe. After all, it was a far-left group which sabotaged the French high-speed railway system ahead of the Paris Olympics. The head of the UK MI5 domestic intelligence service gave a speech in London last week calling for more resources to cope with this evolving threat.

The second priority is to bring the full force of the law against those committing acts of violence. Zero tolerance is key here and consistency of approach. After the UK riots, the incoming government of Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, took immediate action to identify and prosecute hundreds of the rioters. Within days, they were in court, including adolescents, and judges handed down maximum sentences of 2 to 3 years imprisonment. Even individuals who had “only” re-tweeted or originated social media posts stirring up hatred and calling for violence but who had not taken part in actual acts of physical violence were prosecuted. The use of AI proved useful here to the police in identifying the rioters and those spreading hate and disinformation deliberately on social media, who probably but mistakenly believed that they would remain anonymous. Many rioters had used the mayhem to commit other crimes, such as looting shops. The use of political violence by resistance groups in authoritarian or totalitarian states may be justified as the only way to bring about necessary and morally just change. This philosophical and moral debate has gone on for years. But, the situation in democracies, where there are elections and long established procedures for addressing legitimate grievances and allowing for peaceful protest and respect for opposition views and political differences, is not comparable. Politicians of all stripes need to come together to condemn political violence and stop the dog whistle politics that suggest that it is understandable or legitimate political protest. Those political leaders, like Trump or Nigel Farage in Britain, that resort to this tactic need to be called out and isolated every time.

Finally, social media bear a large part of the responsibility for spreading disinformation and creating a political climate in which people’s minds are shaped towards accepting the need for and legitimacy of political violence. Today, the platforms of Meta (Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram) determine what is true for 3 billion people on the planet, not their governments or the traditional media. Before Elon Musk acquired Twitter, the platform had hundreds of fact checkers to spot and take down disinformation. There were, on average, 2500 cases dealt with every month. But now that Twitter is X, the fact-checkers have gone, and there are now 2.4 million cases of fake news and disinformation every month. Yet free speech is not absolute and does not give everyone the right to say absolutely anything, no matter how hateful or misinformed. Those who know the least cannot have the loudest voice online. Words have consequences and are potentially weapons too. “In the beginning was the Word”, says the Bible, which is true of all political action. So, political leaders and policy makers need to maintain their efforts to regulate and clean up social media. Good beginnings like the EU’s Digital Services Act or the UK’s Online Safety Act need to be vigorously enforced and improved as we move forward. Again, decisive action can have its impact even against the all powerful tech companies. For instance, Brazil recently threatened to ban X unless it took down its multiple disinformation sites that had tried to influence Brazilian politics and agreed to pay a large fine. Rather than lose millions of customers, X complied. Of course, this is a difficult area, and even if the major platforms like X or Meta or Google are better regulated, the hate speech will no doubt migrate to newer, smaller platforms like Trump’s Truth Social. But unless the war for the soul of Western social media is won, there can be no healthy democracy and no end to rising political violence.

The views expressed in this #CriticalThinking article reflect those of the author(s) and not of Friends of Europe.