How to Solve Political Violence

“Leftists have tried to kill the president three times now. They killed Charlie. They’ve shot up churches and Christian schools and rioted in the streets. They are the party of terrorism. Political violence comes from one side. How much longer will we allow these people to wage war on the country?”

That was Daily Wire talking head Matt Walsh on X on the evening of April 25.

Let’s set aside for a moment research from the Cato Institute which suggests that violent activism is not in fact a one-sided issue. Let’s even gloss over the fact that multiple assassination attempts were conceived and even attempted against President Obama, with little discussion from conservative influencers. The biggest problem with Walsh’s assessment is that political violence is a redundant term.

Violence is, after all, the only tool which the state possesses. It is not suggested that you pay taxes to bomb Iranian schoolchildren, nor are peaceful illegal immigrants persuaded to pile up in cages, to be beaten, and denied access to outside communication in immigrant detention centers like Alligator Alcatraz. Whether you use a bullet or a ballot, the effect is often largely the same–your neighbors can be wrongfully hurt, robbed, and even killed. Both are political, and both amount to violence.

So why do we justify one and not the other? Why is one called “political violence” and the other “doing your civic duty”? The latter is different only in these regards: 1. that rather than engaging in the violence yourself, you have an intermediary do it for you. 2. That the violence is sanctified by “going through the proper channels.” Thus, when Donald Trump is responsible for the deaths of 120 schoolchildren in an effort to satisfy a foreign government’s policy aims, that is democracy manifest — a cost perhaps, but one worth paying. But when a gunman tries to kill Donald Trump, that’s “political violence.”

When John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, black activist Malcolm X drew considerable ire for saying that this murder was the result of his nation’s own hate and violence coming back upon it — that it was America’s “chickens coming home to roost.” Regardless of whether one is inclined to make such a statement in regard to attempts on President Trump’s life, one thing is clear: it will not do to assert a double standard when it comes to the violation of human rights and the use of violence against peaceful people. It cannot simultaneously be good when the Trump administration violates the rights of human beings but also bad when others attempt to violate the president’s own right to life. Despite how much we try to sanctify the former with magic words like “democracy,” it is just as evil as the latter; and it is immoral to pretend otherwise.

In short, the war that Matt Walsh speaks of — the war being waged on the people of this country — is not one-sided. It comes from politicians and voters of many political persuasions who have fallen for the superstitious lie that the decision to harm others is holy when it emerges from a voting booth or the Oval Office. Moreover, it’s a self-perpetuating war because it teaches us to hate and be suspicious of those who vote differently than us since they wield the power to take our freedom, our livelihoods, and sometimes even our very lives from us. It is difficult to make friends with someone who holds a knife against your neck.

Right wing evangelical influencer Allie Beth Stuckey thinks she has the solution to political violence. It is “a soul-level sickness” that requires “an awakening, which can only happen through Christ.” But, she writes, “in the meantime, it should be priority number 1 for the Trump admin to find every radical, pro-violence activist cell and shut them down without mercy.”

This not only regurgitates the false assumption that political violence is simply when leftists wield guns while not wearing badges or dog tags, but it cheapens something beautifully and wonderfully true. Yes, Christ is the cure to our climate of violence and hate — but not in that paltry and saccharine sense that if we only had the Ten Commandments posted in schoolrooms, America would be a paradise. Christ is the cure to be sure, but only if we truly obey Him — if we choose to live by the wisdom He gave us in the sermon on the mount.

This also means that the answer to political violence is not, as Trump’s attempted assassins wrongfully believed, to engage in more wicked political violence. It is to finally hang up the idea that I have a right to take my neighbor’s life, security, freedom, or property — even if I can get a politician to side with me. As libertarians, we can speak very clearly to the evil of using force against peaceful people. But as Christians, we can do even better–we can speak prophetically to God’s command for all of us to put away the sword before it is turned around and used against us. We can actually stop the chickens from coming home to roost.

A truly peaceful future is possible. This is not the future Matt Walsh is advocating, where a so-called Christian president sics jackbooted thugs on anyone who might be considered one of his political enemies. Instead, it is the future that the biblical prophets talked about — where we will “beat our swords into plowshares” (Isaiah 2:4) and “everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the LORD Almighty has spoken” (Micah 4:4, NIV).