By Middle-School Bloggers Sami Alnabelsi and Mason Conway

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable.

–President John F. Kennedy

There has been an increasing divide between opposing political beliefs. And that makes for dehumanization. We forget the person disagreeing with us is a person, too.

It feels like in the last couple decades, political figures and parties have further split apart, showing no agreements. This needs to stop. Violence is erupting. Something should be done to show we can agree on more things than we know. Also, political figures need to stop stirring things up, stop being hypocrites, and start sticking to what they believe.

According to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (or UNDRR), “Violence is a social phenomenon that involves forceful acts or behaviour that are intended to cause harm. The injury or damage inflicted by violence to an individual or collective group may be physical, psychological, . . . or deprivation.” Compared to criminal acts such as violence of personal gain, political violence has a core element, and that is political motivation. For example, someone’s political party has certain beliefs, and another has a different set of beliefs. If you feel those beliefs go against yours, and you take it so seriously that you’re moved  to violence, this would be political violence. Usually when people are committing political violence, they often target a specific person, but in some cases this violence is focused on institutions or entire governments.

Have we seen a rise of political violence? 

Now that we know what political violence is, we can see if this form of violence has increased over the years, or even decades. According to GOVFACTS, high profile attacks sometimes create a perception that political violence is rapidly increasing. Now let’s look at the numbers to actually see what’s going on. According to ACLED (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data), the US has joined the list of top 50 conflict-ridden countries, primarily due to rising political violence. And, according to Princeton University’s Bridging Divides Initiative, there is a rise in threats and harassment in this country. Threats against public officials are rapidly increasing to almost 3x the number of what they were in 2020 (see GOVFACTS chart below). The rate of political violence is climbing. It needs to stop.

What is driving the rise in political violence?

There are so many factors on why political violence is on the climb. According to GOVFACTS, a major reason for this is dehumanization or “affective polarization.” It is where you have sheer hatred for the opposing party–to an extent where you have no remorse, no regret, nothing at all because you don’t see them as “one of you.” This is effectively demeaning humans. Another possible reason for the rise in violence is hateful rhetoric from political figures. Political leaders saying many hateful and dehumanizing things to opponents is not only immoral, it’s just immature. For example, if you were to be in a political position of authority and you say the person you are running against is a liar and needs to be hated on, that is hateful rhetoric; this leads to your supporters following along in your dehumanizing rhetoric. Eventually both sides speak of this hatred, which fuels the fire in political violence. Lastly, one of the largest “fuel to the fire” is the internet. The online world is large and sometimes we see individuals who spread hateful, radical rhetoric. The most unfortunate thing is because the internet is so large, this rhetoric gets shared with many people, and people start normalizing radical ideas, creating a space where millions of people can willingly excuse or even support political violence. 

How can we solve it?  

We need a solution. A very effective solution is talking things out. Things like productive arguments can help reinforce safe and healthy debates. According to Sami’s “Arguing is Good for Friendship,” a past thebirdonfire.org post, having a productive argument is having an open mind. It doesn’t mean you have to completely agree with the person you are talking to, but at least understanding an issue will allow you to take things in without hatred and fury. Even if someone has something hateful to say to you, understand that he or she needs to learn how to argue productively. And so, you can teach them in a respectful way. Do not resort to political violence. “When you stop talking, that’s when you get violence,” said late activist Charlie Kirk. When we stop having productive debates or arguments, we stop listening to each other.