America the Violent

37% of Americans think Americans may need to resort to violence to get America back on track.

“During the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called Warre; and such a warre, as is of every man, against every man.”
—Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651

For a quarter-millennium, violence has been central to the identity—and the reality—of the United States. The fight for America’s independence began years before the “shot heard around the world,” but it was the use of violence in the founders’ cause that signaled the true beginning of the revolution.

However, imagine we did not have a George Washington or a Paul Revere, and the British had put down the rebellion. The same violence would not be seen as a brave act but as treasonous and futile.

America was successfully founded by men who were bathed in the blood of colonialism, slavery, and revolution. This violent beginning has always remained an undeniable part of America’s genetics.

American civic mythology is commonly taught as a series of righteous military victories, conflicts leaving hundreds of thousands or millions dead, bracketing periods of expansion and relative peace. The Civil War, the Great War, WWII—this is the violence that we celebrate as the mark of a great and exceptional nation.

There is of course some merit to this picture, and even more that it elides, but America’s early identity with righteous military violence is now being distorted to unimaginable proportions.

To celebrate the beginning of American independence 250 years ago, Trump began with gladiatorial bloodsport on the White House lawn with a paywalled UFC event. He canceled long-planned events from the Smithsonian, criminally funneled money to himself and his cronies, and managed to produce a nearly empty National Mall for two weeks with the “Great American State Fair.”

The violent theme resumed on July 3rd with a half-day military air show in DC—although Trump’s fair was forced to shut down due to excessive heat after 11 people were transported to the hospital.

In the evening, Trump speaks at Mt. Rushmore, undoubtedly to explain in detail why he needs to be the fifth man carved onto it.

To end the festivities, July 4th is scheduled to be a nearly 12-hour marathon in heat conditions verging on deadly—the “feels like” index will approach 110F. Another air show that appears to include most of the airborne killing machines used by the military will blanket the region.

July 4th DC air show schedule; July 3rd over Trump’s Fair

Trump has scheduled a “really long speech” for himself at 9:45PM, when temperatures will still be in the 90s. As he told an audience at the opening of Teddy Roosevelt’s Presidential Library:

“On July 4th, it’s going to be approximately 107 degrees out. And I’m going to make a really long speech just to show that I could do anything.”

There is a deep sadomasochistic violence to this statement. He’s openly calling it a physical test, not just for himself but for his followers. This is on the same psychological continuum as the kinds of tests Jim Jones put his cult members through—to prepare them for violence.

“You will suffer with me until the end.”

After a speech that may stretch until 11PM, Trump has one more violent surprise in store. Last year, the July 4th fireworks on the Mall, always among the most spectacular in the nation, used 7,000 shells. For this year’s show, more than 850,000 will be used—120 times more. This is potentially a world-record but may also make the air in the region nearly unbreathable. On average 354 shells per second will be shot into the hot, humid air, creating a blanket of ash and particulates.

It’s difficult to imagine that after this long physical ordeal, there will not be casualties at the event. That the actual stage seems to be falling apart does not help with the impression that safety will not be the first priority.

On the day before the long federal holiday weekend to celebrate American independence, and 250 years of constitutional democracy, former Fox propagandist and now US Attorney for DC, Jeanine Pirro, gave her own definition of violence. She said this when announcing the indictment of Olympian David Hearn for touching the Reflecting Pool:

“By Hearn’s own admission of June 19th he reached down into the pool. Our evidence for those shows that the National Park Service employees observed Hearn actually forcefully and violently pulling up and removing the bottom liner with both hands.”

There is no evidence that David Hearn did anything but touch the water and a piece of already detached liner caused by Trump’s own negligence and incompetence. Nevertheless, Pirro wants to put David Hearn in prison for ten years—because of his “violence” against a shallow pool of water.

With this sadistic, post-truth definition of violence by the state—not to mention the street murders of Americans in Minneapolis by masked federal agents just a few months ago— is it any surprise that more than a third of Americans believe that violence might be necessary to get the nation back on track?

A new Marist/NPR poll says 37% of respondents saw violence as necessary, while 83% said America has strayed far from its founding principles and ideals.

More than one in ten Americans (12%) strongly agree that Americans may need to resort to violence to get the nation back on track. An additional 25% of residents nationally agree with that assertion. When last reported in October of 2025, 11% of Americans strongly agreed that violence might be necessary to right the ship while 19% agreed with the idea. 35% currently disagree that violence is the answer while 27% strongly disagree, down from 36% previously.

Crucially, the poll did not specify what those principles and ideals were, but according to 37% of Americans, violence is apparently compatible with restoring them.

As alarming as this is, it is not inconsistent with Enlightenment philosophers, much less the American revolutionaries they inspired.

“He who attempts to get another man into his absolute power, does thereby put himself into a state of war with him…

In all States and Conditions the true remedy of Force without Authority, is to oppose Force to it.”
—John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 1690

Locke was not calling for violence, nor was he saying it was usually justified. But it was core to his model of government that violence without authority was an act of war. Both he and the founders believed that the burden was not the victim’s to endure.

The respondents to the survey were not necessarily answering out of bloodlust or extremism. Many are surely rational Americans who simply share the founders’ worldview—and see the signs of a state imposing force without authority. They’ve seen a man get 30 years for moving a box of pamphlets, and another indicted for touching water. They‘ve seen not just physical violence but psychological, legal, constitutional, and moral violence by a regime which has lost its authority.

Perhaps it’s time to ask, once again, the basic question: Does might make right?

If so, violence is never the answer, because violence is only the privilege of those who already have the power to wreak it. If not, sometimes the best answer is the only one left.

“Since no man has a natural authority over his fellow, and force creates no right, we must conclude that conventions form the basis of all legitimate authority among men.”
—Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, 1762

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