The Violence They Show You vs. The Violence They Commit

When I say the words “political violence,” what image flashes in your mind?

For most, it’s the spectacular. It’s the Twin Towers crumbling on 9/11. It’s the assassination of a political figure, a bombing of a government building, or a high-profile attack on a media personality. And let’s be clear: those things are absolutely political violence. They are acts of terror designed to shock, intimidate, and achieve a political goal through bloodshed. The corporate media, owned and operated by a handful of billionaires, ensures we never forget it. They provide wall-to-wall coverage, stoking our fear and outrage, and cementing a very specific, very narrow definition of what constitutes a political attack.

But this definition is a masterclass in misdirection. It’s a carefully constructed narrative that focuses our attention on the dramatic, explosive threats to the state and its powerful stewards while completely ignoring the mundane, grinding, and far more pervasive violence inflicted by the state and the ruling class every single day.

What about the political violence that doesn't come from a bomb, but from a piece of legislation? The violence that isn't carried out by a lone gunman, but by a CEO in a boardroom or a bureaucrat with a rubber stamp?

Let’s broaden our definition to what it actually is: Political violence is any harm done to people or communities to achieve the political, economic, or ideological goals of another group.

Some will immediately recoil at this. They’ll argue that this definition is too broad, that it conflates policy with physical attack. They'll complain that it ropes in things like the for-profit healthcare industry, landlords evicting families, and police crushing union strikes.

My response? Yes. It does. And if your gut reaction is to deny that these are forms of violence, it only proves how deeply normalized the systemic brutalization of working people has become in our society. The most effective violence is the kind its victims are conditioned not to see.

Consider the daily acts of political violence so sanitized by our system you might not even recognize them:

• For-Profit Healthcare: In the United States, an estimated 40,000 people die each year due to a lack of health insurance. These are not acts of God; they are the direct, foreseeable consequences of a system designed to generate profit by rationing care. When a CEO denies a life-saving procedure to protect the bottom line, it is a deliberate act of violence for economic and political gain. It’s a slow-motion massacre hidden behind spreadsheets and shareholder reports.
• The War on the Poor: When a city sends armed police to destroy a homeless encampment, throwing people’s last worldly possessions into a garbage truck, it isn't "cleaning up the streets." It is an act of state violence designed to make poverty invisible and protect property values at the expense of human lives. Similarly, a family being thrown out of their home by a sheriff so a landlord can hike the rent is not just "the market at work"; it is the violent enforcement of a system that prioritizes profit over shelter.
• Environmental Destruction: When a corporation knowingly dumps toxic waste into a community’s water supply, disproportionately affecting poor and Black and Brown neighborhoods, it is not an unfortunate externality. It is a calculated act of violence that sickens, disables, and kills people for the sake of higher profit margins. The poisoning of Flint, Michigan, wasn't an accident; it was the result of political decisions made by people who deemed the residents disposable.
• Strike-Breaking and Union-Busting: From the Pinkertons of the 19th century to the "union avoidance" consultants of today, the use of force—whether from private security or the police—to break picket lines and intimidate organizers is a foundational form of political violence in America. It is the physical suppression of workers' rights to ensure the uninterrupted flow of wealth to the capitalist class.
• Mass Incarceration: The United States incarcerates a higher percentage of its population than any other country on earth. This system, which overwhelmingly targets the poor and people of color for non-violent offenses, is not about justice. It is a political tool for social control and a source of modern-day slave labor, where inmates are paid pennies an hour to produce goods for major corporations.

Why do we refuse to call these things what they are? Because the perpetrators control the language.

An imperialist government carpet bombs a civilian neighborhood, and the media calls it a "precision strike." A healthcare conglomerate sentences thousands to death by denial of care, and they call it "fiduciary responsibility to shareholders." Federal agents in unmarked vans kidnap protestors off the street, and they wrap it in the blood-soaked banner of "homeland security."

This brings us to the most crucial question: Why does the assassination of one CEO who profited millions from this death-machine of a healthcare system become a national tragedy, while the 40,000 people he let die are a footnote in a statistical abstract? Why does the killing of a single white nationalist podcaster provoke a nationwide campaign of state-sponsored mourning, while the systemic slaughter of 50,000 Palestinians is sold to us as a necessary "anti-terror operation"?

The answer is as simple as it is fucking infuriating: the people who hold power—the billionaire class, the politicians they own, and the corporate executives who run their empires—do not give a shit about working-class people. Period. They see us as disposable resources, cogs in a machine designed to enrich them. Our lives have value only insofar as we produce labor for them.

They sell us hateful narratives to keep us at each other's throats—immigrant versus native-born, Black versus white, queer versus straight—because the last thing they want is for us to join hands and recognize the real enemy: an economic and political order that funnels all wealth and power to the absolute top while the rest of us fight for scraps.

To be clear, violence is a poison. It traumatizes its victims and strips the humanity from its perpetrators. The simmering conflicts of history—the Troubles in Ireland, the Years of Lead in Italy—left scars across entire generations. We should do everything in our power to avoid that path. But that starts by refusing to let the powerful define who matters. It starts by recognizing that a child in Gaza is as precious as a CEO in Manhattan.

If you believe, as I do, that the life of the poorest, most marginalized child on this planet matters as much as the wealthiest titan of industry, then our moral calculus must change. I care 40,000 times more about the anonymous victims of our healthcare system than I do about the one executive who got rich off their suffering.

Never let them tell you which victims matter. Never let them sanitize their brutality with bureaucratic jargon. If you let the most powerful people in our society target the most vulnerable groups without a fight, it is only a matter of time until they come for you.

Our only path forward is solidarity. Stand with all workers, with immigrants, with queer people, with people of every race and every faith. That is the only way we stand a chance. It’s the only way we build a world actually worth living in.

Take care of each other.