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violence

Friday 26th of April 2024

2018 midterm elections No! Crowd's response when Trump asked them if he should tone it down just a little during his rally in Murphysboro, Illinois, on October 27, 2018, following the murder of 11 Jews at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh earlier that day © 2018 Kwiple.com
2020 Presidential election Also at 2:24 p.m., knowing the riot was underway and that Vice President Pence was  at the Capitol, President Trump sent this tweet: Mike Pence didn't have have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving states a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth! Evidence shows that the 2:24 p.m. tweet immediately precipitated further violence at the Capitol. January 6 Commitee Report - Summary © 2022 Kwiple.com
2020 Presidential election [Deputy Chief of Staff Anthony] Ornato had access to intelligence that suggested violence at the Capitol on January 6th, and it was his job to inform [Chief of Staff Mark] Meadows and Trump of that. Although Ornato told us that he did not recall doing so, the Select Committee found multiple parts of Ornato's testimony questionable.  The Select Committee finds it difficult to believe that neither Meadows nor Ornato told Trump,  as was their job, about the intelligence that was emerging as the January 6th rally approached. … By the time President Trump was preparing to give his speech, he and his advisors knew enough to cancel the rally. And he certainly knew enough to cancel any plans for a march to the Capitol. January 6 Commitee Report - Summary © 2022 Kwiple.com
2020 Presidential election What Pape was seeing in these results did not fit the government model of  lone wolfs and small groups of extremists. “This really is a new, politically violent mass movement,” he told me. “This is collective political violence.”  Pape drew an analogy to Northern Ireland in the late 1960s, at the dawn of the Troubles. Barton Gellman, The Atlantic, January/February 2022 [Robert A. Pape, the leader of a study of the insurrectionists by Chicago Project on Security & Threats called them “committed insurrectionists” and estimated there are 21 million in the US] © 2021 Kwiple.com
2024 Presidential election If I don't get elected, it's going to be a bloodbath for the whole country. Donald Trump © 2024 Kwiple.com
Activism If it takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with.  Ronald Reagan, on ending student protests at University of California, Berkeley © 2023 Kwiple.com
Alt-righters say I'm trying to make myself more capable of violence. I'm here to spread ideas, talk in the hopes that somebody more capable will come along and do that. Somebody like Donald Trump who does not give his daughter to a Jew. … Someone a lot more racist than Donald Trump. Christopher Cantwell, alt-right shock jock, leader of white supremacists, and speaker at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia © 2017 Kwiple.com
Authoritarians Building on [Juan] Linz's work [in The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes ], we have developed a set of four behavioral warning signs that can help us know an authoritarian when we see one. We should worry when a politician 1) rejects, in words or action, the democratic rules of the game, 2) denies the legitimacy of opponents, 3) tolerates or encourages violence, and 4) indicates a willingness to curtail the civil liberties of opponents, including the media. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Bullshitters say This guy turned out to be a a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States. This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH! Donald Trump, Sep 22, 2023, 7:59 PM, calling for the execution of Mark Milley, his chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff [Milley's phone call after the January 6, 2021, insurrection to resassure China the US would not go to war with it was, in fact, explicitly authorized by Trump administration officials] © 2023 Kwiple.com
By the numbers More than 25% of gun homcides in 2015 happened across census blocks that contain just 1.5% of the country's total population. While gun control advocates often say it is unacceptable that Americans overall are “25 times more likely to be murdered with a gun than people in other developed countries”, people who live in these neighborhood areas face an average gun homicide rate about 400 times higher than the rate across those high-income countries. The Guardian, November 15, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Number of people fatally shot by British police in the past 3 years: 2 Average number of people fatally shot by U.S. police each day so far this year: 2.6 Harper's Index, July 2015 © 2015 Kwiple.com
Christianity The greatest miracle Christianity has achieved in America is that the black man in white Christian hands has not grown violent. Malcolm X, in Autobiography of Malcolm X  © 2021 Kwiple.com
COVID-19 coronavirus Letting people put others at risk by refusing to wear masks, practice social distancing, or get vaccinated is qualitatively the same as letting individuals use the threat of violence to get what they want; in both cases, government has a crucial role — it constrains destructive individual behavior. Paul Krugman, New York Review of Books, March 10, 2022 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Dead-in-the-heads say Breaking windows is a symbolic act. Windows break all the time. Things break all the time. Lacy Macauley, antifa organizer, justifying breaking windows like fascits do as a way to express anti-fascist sentiments  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Dead-in-the-heads say I just don't think you can conect it to acts or threats of violence. Mike Pence, denying there's any connection between Trump's violent rhetoric and mail bombs sent to Democrats who he regularly demeans at his rallies or to his supporter who killed 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue © 2018 Kwiple.com
Dead-in-the-heads say This is the price of freedom. Bill O'Reilly, commenting on the 58 murdered and nearly 500 injured by a gun nut in Las Vegas  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Death threats In a world where the president goes on Twitter to call a woman “horseface” it seems pointless to call for “civility.” So let me suggest that we start with a lower bar, maybe one we could still hope to achieve: Let's stop threatening to kill one another. Bill McKibben, recipient of many death threats, New York Times, October 21, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Death threats A society in which critics fear death is a society with fewer critics, and hence with fewer chances for change.  Bill McKibben, New York Times, October 21, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Fascists say Fuck the voting; lets get right to the violence. Shoot to kill. See an Antifa? Shoot to kill. Fuck 'em. Done with this bullshit. Roger Stone, to Danish filmmaker Christoffer Guldbrandsen, on his way home from a November 2, 2020 rally for Doug Collins, a Georgia Republican [Stone later said he was “just kidding”] © 2023 Kwiple.com
Fascists say Who the hell are the 17 percent [of farmers reported to disapprove of Trump]? Anybody in here from the 17 percent? Don’t raise your hand; it may be dangerous. Donald Trump, to farmers attending the 2020 American Farm Bureau Federation Annual Convention and Trade Show © 2020 Kwiple.com
Gun lobbyists say Make them take your guns from your cold dead hands  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Gun lobbyists say Mass shootings are the price of freedom in America © 2018 Kwiple.com
Gun lobbyists say Mass shootings mean not enough people carry guns © 2018 Kwiple.com
Gun lobbyists say People need guns to kill things Sometimes, but not often, the things killed are schoolchildren, usually other people's That's a small price to pay for freedom © 2018 Kwiple.com
Gun lobbyists say People, not guns, kill people More popular than “Soldiers, not weapons, kill combatants” © 2018 Kwiple.com
Gun violence All developed nations regulate firearms more stringently than we do; compared with the citizens of twenty- two other high-income countries, Americans are ten times more likely to be killed by guns. In the past fifty years alone, more civilians have lost their lives to firearms within the United States than have been killed in uniform in all war in American history. Adam Hochschild, New York Review of Books, April 5, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Gun violence For the weary White House, Florida shooting offered a ‘reprieve’ from scandals  headline, Washington Post, February 19, 2018, referring to Trump White House officials admitting to feelings of temporary relief because press coverage of the killings at Marjory Stoneham Dedham High School in Parkland, Florida, pushed reports of spousal abuse by White House officials, Cabinet secretaries charging taxpayers for luxury travel, Trump's affair with a Playboy centerfold, Robert Mueller's indictment of 13 Russians for interfering in our elections, Jared Kushner and other White House officials lacking permanent security clearances, etc. from the front pages © 2018 Kwiple.com
Gun violence Guy comes in, puts the gun in my ribs. And I just said, “I believe you want the guy behind the counter.” I redirected him … The resolution was, he went to the appropriate person behind the register, who gave him the money and he left the store running before the police got there. Ben Carson, on a robbery at a Popeye's in Baltimore © 2015 Kwiple.com
Gun violence I was a little bit shocked at that – it didn't have a bull's-eye on it. Richard Burr, Republican Senator from North Carolina, uttering surprise at seeing a rifle magazine with Hillary Clinton's picture on the cover without a bullseye © 2016 Kwiple.com
Gun violence Look, stuff happens. Jeb Bush, responding to a question about gun violence after a gunman killed 9 and wounded 7 at a community college in October, 2015 He later responded to the uproar over his comment by saying, “Things happen all the time. Things. Is that better?” © 2015 Kwiple.com
Gun violence Not only would I probably not cooperate with him, I would not just stand there and let him shoot me. I would say, “Hey guys, everybody attack him. He may shoot me, but he can't get us all.” Ben Carson, on what he would do if a gunman like the one at Umpqua Community College walked up to him and asked his religion © 2015 Kwiple.com
Gun violence Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine. Barack Obama, after a gunman killed nine people at an Oregon college in October, 2015 © 2015 Kwiple.com
Gun violence Spinning bullets tend to ricochet inside the body at different angles, creating a far more damaging wound. (In fact, experimentation with the dynamical system consituted by a bullet and human flesh has produced a generation of bullets designed to create shock waves that rupture every internal organ.) Manuel De Landa, War in the Age of Intelligent Machines © 2015 Kwiple.com
Gun violence What – are you kidding me? I'm about to fly to Paris and shoot ‘em in the head myself! Michele Fiore, Republican Nevada Assemblywoman, explaining why she didn't sign a statement by Republicans in the state assemby opposing resettling Syrian refugees in the state © 2015 Kwiple.com
Gun violence When you hear the phrase, “armed compound in a secluded rural area,” what is that – a bunch of Democrats? Is that Dennis Kucinich out there? Bill Maher © 2015 Kwiple.com
Gun violence Whoop de do. Philip Van Cleave, president Virginia Citizens Defense League, on being told that there have been zero massacres in Australia since 1996, when sweeping gun control laws were implemented three months after a massacre in which 35 were killed, 23 wounded © 2015 Kwiple.com
Gun violence You can't solve it with a dialogue. You can't solve it with a summit. You solve it with a bullet to the head. It's the only thing these people understand. Andrea Tantaros, Fox News “Outnumbered” co-host, on America's “problem” with Muslims © 2015 Kwiple.com
Hypocrites say  Maxine [Waters], she's a beauty! I mean she was practically telling people the other day to assault. Can you imagine if I said the things she said? … Horrible what she said. Donald Trump, who often explicitly asks supporters at his rallies to punch out his critics and promises to pay their legal bills  if they're charged with assault  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Hypocrites say We have not done a very good job of making sure that people that have mental reasons for not being able to handle a gun getting their name into the FBI files and we need to concentrate on that. Chuck “the Schmuck” Grassley, Republican Senator from Iowa and lead sponsor of standalone legislation that made it easier for people adjudicated to be seriously mentally ill to buy guns and not have their name added to FBI files, commenting on the killing of 17 and wounding of 14 at a Parkland, Florida, high school by a mentally ill ex-student armed with a semiautomatic AR-15 rifle he legally bought off-the-rack at a local gunshop  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Juries My advice to you is that you never disclose that you were on this jury. Judge Lewis Kaplan, to members of the jury after it awarded E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million in her second defamation suit against Donald Trump [To ensure its safety, Kaplan kept the jury partially sequestered and fully anonymous and instructed its members to not reveal their real names to one another, given Trump's supporters' penchant for violence against his opponents] © 2024 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Require all American flags to be flown at half staff until mass shootings drop below one per year © 2017 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Trump and his ilk call mass shootings “evil”  to imply they're part of human nature, and therefore can't be regulated © 2017 Kwiple.com
Nation-states In Max Weber's definition – a monopoly on legitimate violence – the US does not have a state at all. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, February 12, 2021 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Populism Five years since the votes for Brexit and Donald Trump, it is still not understood how much populism boils down to antic rebellion rather than (the initial theory) economic grievance or (much more a leftwing thing) doctrinal belief. This is to some extent a movement of laughing cavaliers. Violence is not their wish, but nor do they recognise it as a plausible and unintended outcome of their doings. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, December 7, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Profiles in courage A little over a month after his inauguration, on Feb. 28, 2017, President Trump signed HJ Resolution 40, a bill that made it easier for people with mental illness to obtain guns. CBS News then asked the White House to release the photograph of Mr. Trump signing the bill, making the request a total of 12 times. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders finally responded to repeated emails and phone calls with a one-line note on April 19, 2017, writing to CBS News, “We don't plan to release the picture at this time.” CBS News. February 15, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Mob bosses say IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I'M COMIG AFTER YOU! Donald “Orange Don” Trump, a.k.a. “The Defendant,” @realDonaldTrump Aug 04, 2023 – 4:49 PM © 2023 Kwiple.com
Republicans say For all we pay them, teachers better be willing to take a bulllet for the kids  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Selfie A couple of weeks ago, I was watching video of people fighting on the street in Washington. A group of Trump guys surrounded an Antifa kid and started pounding the living shit out of him. It was three against one, at least. Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight. Yet suddenly I found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they’d hit him harder, kill him. I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it. Tucker Carlson, January 7, 2021 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Socio-economic mobility The more an underclass peacefully approaches economic and political equality, the more violent and resentful the overclass grows. Stephen Marche, The Next Civil War  © 2022 Kwiple.com
Sociopaths say The Democrats are the party of pedophiles. The Democrats are the party of princess predators from Disney.  The Democrats are the party of teachers, elementary school teachers trying to transition their elementary school-age children and convince them they're a different gender. This is the party of their identity, and their identity is the most disgusting, evil, horrible thing happening in our country. Marjorie Taylor Greene, seeding the ground for political violence by sociopaths like herself and her kuckle-dragging followers  © 2022 Kwiple.com
State of the union Arguably, the real problem for the U.S. is not that it can be torn apart by political violence, but that it has learned to live with it. Fintan O'Toole, The Atlantic, January/February 2022 © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union But anocracy, not autocracy, is our most immediate threat. Anocracy is usually transitional  — a repressive government allows reforms, or a democracy begins to unravel — and it is volatile. When a country moves into the anocracy zone, the risk of political violence reaches its peak; citizens feel uncertain about their government's power and legitimacy. Compared with democracies, anocracies with more democratic than autocratic features are three times more likely to experience political instability or civil war. Barbara F. Walter, Washington Post, January 24, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
State of the union The Trump movement was always authoritarian and illiberal. It indulged periodically in the rhetoric of violence. Trump himself chafed against the restraints of law. But what the United States did not have  before 2020 was a large national movement willing to justify mob violence to claim political power. Now it does. David Frum, The Atlantic, July 13, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union The United States is heading into its greatest political and constitutional crisis since the Civil War, with a reasonable chance over the next three to four years of incidents of mass violence, a breakdown of federal authority, and the division of the country into warring red and blue enclaves. The warning signs may be obscured by the distractions of politics, the pandemic, the economy and global crises, and by wishful thinking and denial. Robert Kagan, Washington Post, September 23, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
State of the union c We're the world's leader in active shooter drills, by far and by necessity  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Trumpism What we’re seeing, I liken it to a land, sea and air attack. The land attack is on voting rights. That is one of the ways that you begin to undermine democracy. The sea attack are these attacks against  teaching critical race theory and “divisive” topics, so you can erase people from American history and  erase the role of various people in American history. And the air attack is the loosening of gun laws  that we're seeing in Texas, Tennessee and Georgia.  This is a full-blown assault on American democracy that’s going after voting rights, that's going after education and that is reinforcing political violence as an acceptable method of bringing about your political aims. Carol Anderson, New York Times Magazine, March 20, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say As far as I’m concerned,  Israel can bounce the rubble in Gaza. Anything that happens in Gaza is the responsibility of Hamas — Hamas killed  women and children in Israel last weekend. Tom Cotton, a Harvard-educated fan of indiscriminate violence when used against people he dislikes by people he likes © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say Blacks hate Mexicans … Mexicans move in and shoot black people, the jobs have been taken. Anything he says about Mexicans, his vote goes up with the brothers. Ann Coulter, on Trump's attack on a Mexican-American judge © 2018 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say Democrats have so normalized hatred and violence against the president of the United States that I fear it will result in some crazy leftie trying to assassinate him. Jeanine Pirro © 2018 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone is entitled to a mulligan once in a while. Sen. Mike Lee, excusing the mob of Trump insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, killing five, including a Capitol policeman  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say I don't believe in anything. I’m just here for the violence. slogan on patch worn by Kelly Meggs, one of the Oath Keepers on trial for seditious conspiracy for their role in the January 6 attack on the Capitol © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say I’m going in with 20 strong men. I’m gonna speak in front of the school board and I’m gonna give them an option. They can leave or they can be removed. And then after that we're gonna replace them with nine parents and we're gonna vote down the mask mandates that evening. That evening. This is how you get stuff done. Forget writing your legislators. Forget it. They’re not listening. You gotta do something. It's us. It's we the people. Steve Lynch, August 29, 2021, Republican candidate for Northhampton County, PA, executive, on school boards that invoke anto-Covid mask mandates © 2021 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say I've said we need to build more gallows.  If we try some of these high-level criminals, convict them and use a newly built set of gallows, it'll make an example of these traitors who have betrayed our country. Wendy Rogers, Republican state senator from Flagstaff, AZ, fantasizing about hanging poitical opponents in a speech zoomed to the white nationalist American First Political Action Conference in Florida on February 25, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
< Trumpists say On bureaucracy, you know, we’re going to have all these deep state people, you know, we’re going to start slitting throats on Day One and be ready to go. You’re going to see a huge, huge outcry because Washington wants to protect its own. Ron DeSantis, July 30, 2023, giving new meaning to “cutting the workforce” at a Rye, New Hampshire, barbecue [Earlier, he said the Defense Secretary needs to “slit some throats”] © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say The rule of law appears to be suspended  tonight — not just for Trump, but for anyone who would consider voting for him. This is what it seems to be. It is a political purge. … [It's] probably not the best time to give up your AR-15. Tucker Carlson, March 30, 2023, on a Manhattan grand jury's indictment of Trump for crimes related to paying hush money to Stormy Daniels © 2022 Kwiple.com
< Trumpists say Those who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes grasping for anything because they are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome and their entire existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House. Steven Cheung, Trump 2024 campaign spokesman, responding to people who point out that Trump's calling his critics “vermin” and claiming that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” is the exact same rhetoric used by fascist dictators Hitler and Mussolini  © 2023 Kwiple.com
< Trumpists say We are going to be the first president that’s going to be willing to lean against the Mexican drug cartels. … If they’re trying to bring fentanyl into our communities that’s going to be the last thing they do because at the border they’re going to be shot stone cold dead. Ron DeSantis, July 30, 2023, to cheering attendees at a barbecue in Rye, New Hampshire © 2023 Kwiple.com
< Trumpists say We should string you up by a lamppost right now. You're running into a patriot now. Justin Andersch, conspiracy theorist, after unleasing a string of racial and anti-government empithets toward Nevada's governor Steve Sisolak and his wife, Kathy, who is of Chinese heritage and calling her a "working-for-China piece of shit” in a Las Vegas restaurant © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say What I would tell Bibi is that Israel has the right and the responsibility to defend itself. I would tell him to smoke those terrorists on the southern border. And I would tell him as president of the United States, I'll be smoking the terrorists on our southern border. Vivek Ramaswamy, when asked during the November 8, 2023, Republican presidential debate what advice he would give Benjamin Netanyahu about Israel's ongoing war with Hamas © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say You guys need to be publicly executed … on pay per view. Email received by a 52-year-old member of the election board in Fulton County, GA, which Biden won and Trump accused of stealing the election © 2021 Kwiple.com
Violence All workable social systems are predicated on creating reliable forms of cooperation among an extensive population and then distributing the fruits of that cooperation in ways that prevent the outbreak of catastrophic violence. Josiah Ober, The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece © 2021 Kwiple.com
Violence Any guy that can do a body slam, he's my kind of guy. Donald Trump, complimenting Greg Gianforte for punching and body slamming a reporter during the 2016 campaign, for which he later pled guilty to misdemeanor assault © 2019 Kwiple.com
Violence By rich-world standards, America is a staggeringly violent country. The murder rate is six times higher than it is in Britain, France or Germany and 20 times higher than in Japan. In 2020, one in 700 black men aged 18 to 24 was murdered. Violence is now not only cutting short the lives of over 24,000 people per year. It is also devastating entire communities, as businesses and middle-class people leave crime-ridden neighborhoods. Plausible estimates put the social cost of murder at over $400bn per year, around 2% of America's GDP. The Economist, September 17, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Violence In the past, it was perfectly normal for all sorts of different groups, starting with family clans, to make use of physical violence. Today, in contrast, we would have to say that the state is the only  human community that (successfully) claims a  monopoly on physical violence  for itself, within a certain geographical territory (this territorial aspect is a defining feature.) Max Weber, “The Politician's Work” in Charisma and Disenchantment, translated by Damion Searls © 2020 Kwiple.com
Violence They want to throw rocks at our military, our military fights back. We'll consider – and I told them – consider it a rifle. When they throw rocks like they did at the Mexico military and police, I say consider it a rifle. Donald Trump, warning Central American refugees walking from southern Mexico to America's border they could be killed if they try to enter the United States © 2018 Kwiple.com
Violence Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable. John F. Kennedy, March 13, 1962, Address on the First Anniversary of the Alliance for Progress © 2022 Kwiple.com
Violence Violence is the ultimate foundation of any political order. Peter L. Berger, An Invitation to Sociology © 2021 Kwiple.com
Violence While natural death became more and more smothered in prudery, violent death has played an ever-growing part in the fantasies offered to mass audiences–detective stories, thrillers, Westerns, war stories, spy stories, science fiction, and eventually horror comics. Geoffrey Gorer, “The Pornography of Death” © 2018 Kwiple.com
Wannabe autocrats say The people won't stand for it. Donald Trump, on what will happen if special counsel Robert Mueller's report makes him look bad © 2019 Kwiple.com
War The future use of military forces, driven by autonomous systems, weaponized algor-  ithms, and hypersonic weapons, highlights the potential for a more destructive form of warfare in the twenty-first century. However, as the Russians and Chinese have demonstrated over the past decade, if objectives can be achieved without violence, most actors will do so. New ways of using information operations, lawfare, and deniable military and para- military activities offer different pathways to achieve strategic outcomes for state and nonstate actors. Mick Ryan, War Transformed  [2022] © 2022 Kwiple.com
 
Weather On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen.  Raymond Chandler, on California's Santa Ana winds © 2017 Kwiple.com