Time to End Tolerance of Political Violence

President-elect Biden said this yesterday:

“Let me be very clear. The scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not reflect a true America, do not represent who we are. What we’re seeing are a small number of extremists dedicated to lawlessness. This is not dissent. It’s disorder. It’s chaos. It borders on sedition, and it must end now.”

That is entirely correct. It is high time that we came to a consensus as a people that in the United States in the twenty-first century violence, destruction of property, and occupation of any place belonging to the public or another person for political ends are never justified, never excusable, and should never be tolerated. Those who engage in such actions are criminals and should be treated as such.

The past is the past. Violence was necessary in the eighteenth century to throw off an overseas imperial government that had become tyrannical. In the mid-twentieth century, peaceful civil disobedience, including sit-ins at segregated lunch counters, was necessary to bring down a racist system that reduced people to inferior status based only on their race. Those days are long behind us.

There is no justification for rioting. There is no justification for breaking into or burning public buildings, private buildings, or cars. There is no justification for looting. A peaceful demonstration may temporarily occupy a street or a park, but there is no justification for extended occupations of places that prevent their use for purpose for which they are intended, nor is there any justification for forcibly taking a place that is not a public forum for a demonstration.

There are important differences between yesterday’s debacle at the Capitol and last year’s destruction and occupation. I do not claim they are equivalent. Yesterday’s invasion of the Capitol struck at our national democracy by forcibly, though briefly, disrupting the peaceful transfer of power via election that goes to the heart of the people’s right of self-government. The riots of 2020 and the mob occupation of a part of Seattle were less central and more localized. They also went on much longer and caused more direct harm to ordinary people. Regular folks saw their cars burned, their small businesses destroyed, and their neighborhoods occupied by “warlords” with no claim to authority but raw force.

Yet these events have important similarities also. Mr. Biden’s description above fits the 2020 lawlessness just as well as it fits yesterday’s lawlessness. Responsible leaders across the political spectrum should condemn all political violence and destruction with vigor. Prosecutors should prosecute the perpetrators to the full extent of the law, and those who refuse to do so should be tossed at the next election or recalled now in jurisdictions where recall is available.