Here are two terms that help me as I try to make sense of The National Political Scene™ in this dark hour:
I. Diversity of Tactics
This concept says that we are all in charge of our own actions and those tactics that we are comfortable with, but we should as much as we can refrain from criticizing the tactics of those with whom we share concerns and goals. For instance, I personally am deeply committed to nonviolence and will not engage in property destruction—but I refuse to spend my voice and energy denouncing the protesters who burned down a police substation in Minneapolis in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. Here’s Malcolm X (via Wikipedia) explaining the reasoning behind diversity of tactics:
Our people have made the mistake of confusing the methods with the objectives. As long as we agree on objectives, we should never fall out with each other just because we believe in different methods or tactics or strategy to reach a common goal.
Imagine if Martin Luther King, Jr. had spent significant time criticizing Malcolm X and the Black Panthers because of their more militant tactics. He would have played right into the hands of the racist, segregationist right. And without more militant actors making King’s nonviolence seem reasonable and like a decent compromise, we might never have had the Civil Rights Acts.
Now look at this headline and framing from the New York Times:
This kind of hand-wringing and scolding of the left plays directly into the hands of the fascists! How in the ever-loving world do you think centrist Democrats might have the chance “to rein in the agency” if not by having this position seem like the reasonable, compromise in contrast to the vehemence and moral clarity of the “Abolish ICE” crowd. This compulsive criticism of the left is itself a bad tactic, and one that takes pressure off of the very agency (ICE) that these “Democratic Critics” are supposedly critical of.
David Graeber has a wonderful explanation the necessity of embracing a diversity of tactics—and the danger of trying to police others’ tactics—in his short essay “Concerning the violent peace-police”:
Successful movements have understood that it’s absolutely essential not to fall into the trap set out by the authorities and spend one’s time condemning and attempting to police other activists. One makes one’s own principles clear. One expresses what solidarity one can with others who share the same struggle, and if one cannot, tries one’s best to ignore or avoid them, but above all, one keeps the focus on the actual source of violence, without doing or saying anything that might seem to justify that violence because of tactical disagreements you have with fellow activists.
II. Police Riot
This term describes a confrontation between police and civilians in which the police are the ones inciting, escalating, and sustaining violence. I learned this term during the George Floyd protests in 2020, and I wrote about it then:
[P]olice have committed many of the signal violent acts of the last week-and-a-half. Perhaps nowhere has this been clearer than when military police gassed and assault[ed] peaceful protesters in D.C.’s Lafayette Square so that our president could have his picture taken holding up a Bible like 12-pound salmon. But here in Los Angeles we have also had incidents of police intentionally ramming protesters with their cars, clubbing peaceful protesters, and even smashing out windows to drag people out of their cars for the crime of driving after curfew.
The past is prologue. Today in Minneapolis ICE agents act more as occupying militia than as police. And boy do they love shattering windshields and dragging people out of their cars. The violence and spectacle and provocation are the point. Here’s Lydia Polgreen reporting what it was like to actually go to her hometown and see the occupation firsthand:
From afar, this tragic and possibly criminal act of violence could plausibly be seen as incidental to President Trump’s mission to deport undocumented people from the country. But when I landed in Minneapolis on Monday and saw the size, scope and lawlessness of the federal onslaught unfolding here, I understood that Good’s killing was emblematic of its true mission: to stage a spectacle of cruelty upon a city that stands in stark defiance against Trump’s dark vision of America.
The brutality is the point. A police riot seeks to create the conditions of violence and lawlessness that, by a certain logic, call for further police to be deployed. They create the conditions of their own necessity. (Or for the invocation of the Insurrection Act.)
