George Santayana is credited as being the first to state, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The truth of his words has been illustrated numerous times throughout history. Today, the use of proxy wars in Syria is a continuation of a similar conflict in Vietnam — or even it’s application for individuals in a relationship who don’t learn from their fights and inevitably break up.
Therefore, it’s no surprise that, when we do nothing to address the root causes of political violence, it rears its ugly head over and over again. Within the United States, the Ku Klux Klan has had several periods of violent activity beginning in the 1870s 一 reoccurring in the early 1910s and 1960s, with groups still active today.
However, while these events seem to have occurred at very different times in human history with varying events influencing them, 2021 is an outlier to these circumstances. This is because in 2021 the U.S. failed to learn from history and repeated itself in nearly immeasurable amounts. Overwhelmingly from the right, from Jan. 1, 2021, to Dec. 3, 2021, The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project reported there were 13,423 reports of protests, with 12,797 of them involving rioting and/or acts of violence against civilians. These acts are “triggered by a variety of social events that touch on a number of interrelated identities or purposefully ignited for partisan political purposes,” according to the Journal for Democracy.
Of the many noteworthy events of 2021, the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riots was by far the worst. On the morning of Jan. 6, 2021 then-President Donald Trump gave a speech to thousands of his supporters in Washington D.C., spewing claims about “saving America” and “stop the steal.” From there, his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building in such a violent manner that injured over 100 and killed five from reports of Trump’s impeachment trial.
In August, Portland faced a night of violence between far-right groups of two separate religious events and counter protesters. Oregon Public Broadcasting reported, “While the two groups exchanged volleys of mace, paintballs and fireworks throughout downtown Sunday night, Portland police took no steps to intervene.” Later that month, the Guardian published that gunfire was exchanged between protesters and counter protesters at a Proud Boys rally.
Last November, Republican House member, Representative Paul Gosar was censured after he posted an animated video online which depicted him wielding a sword and killing fellow House member Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as well as attacking President Joe Biden. This removed him from his seats on the Natural Resources Committee and the Oversight panel. While the original Tweet has since been deleted, some people have called for Gosar’s Instagram and Twitter accounts to be removed.
While Gosar was called out for his actions, the consequences he faced after posting a video of him killing one of his congressional colleagues were relatively minimal. Yes, he was removed from his committee positions within the House, but his social media accounts remain active, and no barriers were put in place which would prevent him or someone else from doing something similar in the future. Simply condemning an action is not the same as actively working to solve the larger problem of how actions like Gosar’s are permitted to occur in the first place.
Even though 2021 saw one of the largest increases in political violence, it is difficult to say that, similar to a New Year’s resolution, the bad habit will be left in 2021. But the problem is less that the acts occur at all, seeing as they’ve occurred for decades. The problem is that so many of these acts have occurred in recent years that they have become routine. Political violence is an expected norm in the U.S. political climate.
Between 2017 and 2020, professors Nathan P. Kalmoe and Lilliana Mason found from 2017 to 2019 nearly 16% of Democrats and Republicans believed that violence was justified. This number then grew during the 2020 election period when Republicans supported violence at nearly 18%.
Acts of political violence will most likely not go away. However, Americans’ attitudes about them can be changed. Additionally, those with legislative power can put laws and regulations into place which reduce the amount of violent acts and increase the repercussions for those who take part in them. Let us learn from our mistakes in 2021 and not let them repeat in 2022.