Incitements to violence
Last week Rep. Paul Gosar posted an altered anime video in which he is shown killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Biden before the video cuts out at the end. In any other situation, posting a video of yourself killing a colleague would result in immediate termination and most likely serious legal repercussions, and yet it looks like the only thing that's happening is that he's being stripped of his committee assignments. Even Fox News (usually heavily pro-Republican) is disturbed at how Republican leadership has been silent on the issue.
This is part of a growing pattern we've been seeing unfolding. Earlier this year, representative Marjorie Taylor Greene was also stripped of her committee assignments for a wide range of statements and actions endorsing violence against specific Democratic lawmakers. In more subtle cases, Rep. Mo Brooks, Rep. Maxine Waters, and Donald Trump also made comments—though not targeting specific individuals—that could be interpreted as inciting general violence or unrest. Regardless of whether these behaviors are technically legal or not (i.e. within the bounds of "free speech"), we should ask ourselves whether this is the kind of behavior we want to see in our representatives. The question is: are these endorsements of violence ultimately harmless, or do they lead to actual harm? The data is clear: endorsements of violence not only constitute a death threat—which some call a form of psychological torture—but they often lead to further death threats and have a real possibility of leading to actual violence: one study on follow-ups to death threats showed that 44% of people who gave death threats ended up being convicted of further violence.
We do not go far enough in dealing with this kind of behavior. At a minimum, people who endorse or incite violence—however comically or stylistically—should not be allowed in any public office. But it's not just about making sure there are disincentives in place; many of the people who give death threats have mental health issues and they should be able to get support in the form of psychological counseling. In Paul Gosar's and Marjorie Taylor Greene's cases, it's more likely they simply do not understand the harms involved, both the immediate harms caused by the threat of violence to another person, but also the long-term harms of nourishing an already existing culture of violence.
There are many insecting issues relating to violence we have to address in the world, and particularly in the United States where guns are prevalent and can be bought online and assembled by anyone of any age without restriction. But in the short term, everyone needs to do their part in denouncing calls to violence wherever we see them. If we do not, death threats will keep happening and issues like violent domestic extremism—which has been on the rise since the early 2000s—are only going to get worse.
