The United States was founded on political violence, which has long lasted in a "revolutionary" form as an instrument of political influence.

Afrasianet - Maurizio Valsania - The  Conversation   publishes an article that examines the roots and continuity of political violence in American history, from the American Revolution to the modern era, and offers a critical insight into the idea that incidents of political violence are an "anomaly" or "exception" in the United States.

The following is the text of the article:

The day after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot dead while giving a speech at Utah Valley University, commentators repeated a familiar phrase: "That's not who we are as Americans." Others expressed similar views, with actress Whoopi Goldberg saying on her show "The View" that Americans usually resolve political differences peacefully, and "that's not the way things are done."

When the incident occurred, she immediately remembered other horrific incidents, such as the shooting assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. In mid-June, the honorary speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives, Melissa Hortman, was killed in her home with her husband and their pet dog.

As a historian, I believe that viewing this violence from Americans as separate "rings" is wrong, because it reflects a recurring pattern. American politics has long personalized its violence, and it has repeatedly portrayed that historical progress depends on silencing or destroying the character of an adversary who becomes a sworn enemy.

Claims that these incidents reveal "who we are" also overlook the fact that the United States was founded on this kind of political violence, which has long persisted in a "revolutionary" form as a tool of political influence.

Revolutionary Violence as Political Theater

The years of the American Revolution were saturated with violence. Among the abominable practices used against political opponents was "tar and feather," a punishment imported from Europe and made famous two centuries ago by the Sons of Liberty, colonial activists who resisted British rule.

In coastal cities such as Boston and New York, the masses stripped their political enemies of their clothes, often suspected loyalists of British rule, or officials representing the king, then anointed them with hot tar, wrapped in feathers and paraded them through the streets. The effects of these acts on the bodies of the punished were devastating: as the tar was removed the flesh was torn to pieces, and the survivors of this deadly punishment carried scars for the rest of their lives. 

By the late 1870s, the revolt in the so-called Middle Colonies had turned into a fierce civil war. In New York and New Jersey, nationalist militias, in addition to British partisans and soldiers, launched raids across county borders, targeting plantations and nearby areas. When national forces captured loyalist irregular soldiers, often called "conservatives" or "refugees," they were often treated as traitors rather than prisoners of war, and were often quickly executed by hanging.

In 1779, six Loyalists were arrested near New Jersey and hanged without trial by nationalist militias. In the same period, two people suspected of spying for the Conservatives were executed by firing squad, and the militias justified their execution as punishment for their treason. For patriots, these massacres were a deterrent, and for Loyalists, they were deliberate killings. In both cases, these crimes were clearly politically motivated, eliminating "enemies whose crime was" loyalty to the wrong side.

Pistols at Dawn: Fencing as Politics

Even after independence, the mechanisms of political action in the United States remained based on the logic of violence toward adversaries. For national leaders, gun dueling was not just a matter of honor, but part of a political culture that saw shooting as a means of "debate." The most famous duel, of course, was the 1804 duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, which ended in the latter's death, while dozens of other lesser-known confrontations took place in the decade that preceded it.

In 1798, Henry Brockholst Livingston, who later became a U.S. Supreme Court justice, killed James Jones in a duel. Rather than tarnish his reputation, he considered his conduct honorable. In the early days of the Republic, murders could be incorporated into political practice and concealed within these rituals. Ironically, in 1785 Livingston himself survived an assassination attempt.

In 1802, New York witnessed another shameful incident, when Dwight Clinton and John Swartwit faced off and fired more than five shots before their aides intervened, injuring the two men. The clash was not related to a political principle, as the two men were "Republicans." Their quarrel over patronage, however, ended in an exchange of gunfire, was a clear embodiment of the normalization of gun violence in emerging American political life.

Weapon culture and expansion

It is tempting to think of political violence as merely a remnant of "primitive" or "modern" phases of American history, when politicians and their supporters were supposed to lack restraint or high moral standards. But this perception is not true.

From before the American Revolution, corporal punishment or even murder was a means of imposing belonging, drawing boundaries between the inside and the outside, and determining who had the right to rule. Violence was never a distortion of American policy, but a recurring feature of it, not a deviation but a relentless and destructive force, but strangely capable of inventing new borders and systems.

This dynamic deepened as gun ownership expanded. In the 19th century, industrial gun production and aggressive federal contracts increased gun proliferation. The ritual of punishing dissidents was manifested by mass-manufactured pistols and, later, by automatic rifles.

These modern firearms have not only become practical tools of war, crime, and self-defense, but have also become symbolic tools in their own right: they have embodied power, carried cultural connotations, and given their bearers a sense of the possibility of claiming legitimacy through the barrel of a gun.

That's why the phrase "this is not our nature"  seems false. Political violence has always been an integral part of America's history, not a passing anomaly or an extraordinary cycle. His denial leaves Americans unprotected. Only confronting this history head-on could open the door to envisioning a policy that is not defined by gun barrels.

Source: The Conversation