Political Violence

Note: This photo released by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania shows damage to the Pennsylvania Governor's Residence in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, after a fire Sunday, April 13, 2025.

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When I saw this photo, I looked it at for a long time. Some would say alarmingly long. Since my teenage years, I’ve had an affinity for what I would later (and to my distaste) learn is sometimes referred to as “ruin porn”. Think: dilapidated barns in rural spaces. Think: a twisted version of the quaint scene William Carlos Williams shares in some of his pastoral poems. Though, I should note, I’ve argued myself that WCW was being a doing something a little similar to me, likely related to class perceptions, when looking at rundown scenes and finding “the beautiful”.

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This image could be considered beautiful, in an artistic way. This depends on your ideas of beauty and aesthetics.

It looks like the backdrop to a Jan Saudek (NSFW) scene.

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I’ve been frontloading.

It’s difficult to face the reality.

Someone set fire to the Pennsylvania Governor’s House on Passover.

Charges against the suspect in custody include: terrorism, attempted murder, arson, and the list goes on.

Josh Shapiro, Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, assured the public that he would not be prevented from celebrating the 2nd Passover seder.

We know the rules.

We don’t give negotiate with terrorists.

We don’t obey in advance.

We stand strong in the face of hatred.

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Acts of politically-motivated violence have ramped up since Donald Trump came on the scene and, as a populist and chaos agent, proceeded to break down civic norms.

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For years, I’d watch The West Wing on a slow but steady loop in the way that some read Proust’s In Search of Lost Time.

Trying to watch The West Wing under Trump 2.0 seems impossible. This operated a political framework that ended with the Presidency of Barack Obama. Some would argue this style of thinking, of Liberalism, met its death at the end of 20th Century and that Obama’s Presidency should really be lumped into that category.

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We might think we know where we’re headed but we’re not sure yet.

I hold out a certain level of optimism. (I’ve been surprising myself in this regard.)

While we may find ourselves in a more “Limited Democracy” for a time, this is not necessarily indicative of the direction that we will continue to go in the foreseeable future.

A great deal depends on the 2026 midterm election and, moreover, our ability to have a free and fair election (in relative terms given our times). Importantly, it means that we must have at least one viable opposition party. For now, the Democrat party. A toothless opposition will mean a sham election much like Putin’s Russia. But it hasn’t happened here, yet, not to that extent, and so let’s hold out hope.

(Sure, we know it’s all gone south since the 2000 election. A somewhat shocking 25 years ago…)

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Let’s end without an outshot about the importance of avoiding the normalization of political violence.

This will take us nowhere good.

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