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Xavier H.M.

On the glorification of political violence

I was surprised today to see a post in my Bearblog RSS glorifying political violence.

I won't link to the post or mention it by name but it's on the Discover feed right now. I don't want to make a big "public response" because I don't have the time or energy to take the heat that would follow, and I'm not a fan of sub-posting and meta and whatever else (most of us will remember what happened the last time Bearblog meta hit the Discover feed, lol.)

My aim isn't even to respond to any specific person or content. This sort of rhetoric is everywhere online right now. It just happened to touch down on Bearblog, I saw it, and it spurred a backlog of thoughts that have been ruminating in my head for the past couple months.

If you haven't figured it out I'm referring to the whole Luigi Mangione thing. I find the left's response to this act of political violence incredibly concerning.

I'm not particularly sympathetic to the plight of health insurance executives and I'm no proponent of America's healthcare system. But that doesn't really matter. Murder is murder. A man was killed.

Four years ago the far-right formed an armed mob and stormed the US Capitol. This was an egregious act of political violence which the left rightly condemned.

Fast forward to now. A far-left murderer killed a man in an egregious act of political violence which certain pockets of the left refuse to condemn. Not only that—they've gone as far as deifying him as some sort of folk hero.

Is this not evidence of the horseshoe theory at work? Both the far-left and far-right are celebrating political violence. The supporters of violent actors are gathering in cults of personality, lifting criminals to a saintly status.

What's the fucking difference between the QAnon Shaman and Luigi Mangione after you strip them of their political agendas?

I've yet to see an actionable goal from Mangione's supporters outside of forwarding rhetoric to justify his crimes. There will be no come-to-Jesus moment for health insurance companies. Politicians will not suddenly be called to push reformative legislation through our insanely gridlocked Congress.

The average American will not "wake up". And what will they even be waking up to—a coalition of politically active citizens banding together to do the hard, boring work of enacting change from the bottom up? Get real.

How many of these people cheering on Mangione can be counted on to attend their city council meetings, call up their representatives, or join local political groups? It's much easier to just LARP as revolutionaries online. Working within governmental channels is a complicated grind. The more rewarding route would be to throw our hands up and let extremists tear it all down, no matter the social or moral casualties that result. This also allows us to remain passive spectators and absolves us of our own civic duties.

Abstracting political violence into a necessary means for ideological ends never leads anywhere good, let alone constructive. The only thing this assassination has accomplished is stoke further division and degrade social trust even further.


Posted on — 01/13/25
Last modified — 6 months, 4 weeks ago
Link — https://blog.xavierhm.com/on-the-glorification-of-political-violence

#blog #politics