The Ethics of Responding to Political Violence

Politicians and pundits should unequivocally condemn political violence. Political rhetoric matters.

Journalists and analysts should focus on violence being real, but hugely unpopular and out of the norm. Framing matters.

Everyone in and around politics should reinforce that political violence is not OK, and is not common. They should reinforce that politics is people coming together to solve shared problems. Political debate is important, can be partisan and fierce, and should never be violent.

The murder of conservative celebrity Charlie Kirk was wrong. Celebrating or excusing political violence, including the murder of Mr. Kirk, is wrong. Democracies manage conflict through debate and persuasion rather than violence. Violence is, by definition, anti-democratic.

Political violence is as old as politics and political violence in the United States is as old as the republic. That history is well told elsewhere. That violence is part of politics does not make political violence acceptable. People have always done, and will continue to do, terrible things. That doesn’t excuse them.

How we talk about political violence, including the shooting of Mr. Kirk, matters. Scholars have long noted that political rhetoric and framing matter. 

We rhetorically construct and maintain our political communities. Nations are “imagined communities” (Anderson);  “incessantly produced through rhetoric.” (Bruner) “[P]olitical myths are purely rhetorical phenomena, ontological appeals constructed from artistic proofs and intended to redefine an uncomfortable and oppressive reality” that “function as a means of providing social unity and collective identity. Indeed, “the people” are the social and political myths they accept.” (McGee) As Murray Edelman put it, “Language is the key creator of the social worlds people experience.” 

Our politics is what we all broadly agree it is. We set and enforce the boundaries for acceptable behavior. If we say violence is OK, our politics will be violent. If we say violence is not OK, we will have less violence.

In addition, John Sides and many others have found that voters’ opinions are influenced by political elites. The definition of elite is shifting, and in this context may be best defined as “people who others listen to about politics.” The late Mr. Kirk was a political provocateur for a living. He was not a trained political scientist, not an elected official, or anything else that would define elite as most social scientists would describe it. He did however have a large and devoted political following. How elites - however defined - talk about Mr. Kirk’s shooting and political violence in general will help inform what a lot of people think about political violence. 

The media (again, however defined) also play a role in what people think about political violence. Most people are not engaged in politics most of the time. Politics, for most people, most of the time, is something best avoided. Most people pay attention to politics when they have to - during elections, insurrections, or shootings. If political and media elites say that political violence is normal, justified, or even encouraged then our politics will become more violent. 

Journalists and commentators have a choice when they write about political violence. They can highlight the handful of extreme voices and show poll numbers without contex or explanation - or they can point out that the overwhelming majority of Americans oppose political violence, that public support for political violence is thin at best, and that most leaders on the political left came out strongly against Mr. Kirk’s shooting. The media can frame political violence as abhorrent and rare, thereby reinforcing that political violence it out of the norm. Or the media can frame political violence as normal and accepted, thereby making political violence more normal and more acceptable. Both can be true - some can support political violence and political violence can be more common, and at the same time most people can condemn political violence and political violence can be the exception rather than the rule. Which frame journalists highlight matters.

If politics is defined as full of rage and violence, a lot of people will believe that in order to be involved in politics they must be rageful and violent. Most people aren’t always angry and are rarely (if ever) violent, so won’t see politics as something they want to do - and if they do engage in politics they might think they have to shout and threaten to succeed. Most people of course want nothing to do with a field that is mostly vitriol and violence. The result is a democratic death spiral in which only the angry and violent will participate in politics. That can only end badly.

A baseline ethical obligation of everyone in politics is to advocate for a political system in which violence is unacceptable. Anything less risks the end of politics.