# "Political violence is never the answer." Talk to me about this **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 11, 2025, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-violence-is-never-the-answer-talk-to-me-about-this/1022962 "2025-09-11T19:02:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Cmyers1980](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyers1980/32/11814_2.png) [@Cmyers1980](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cmyers1980)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2025, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-violence-is-never-the-answer-talk-to-me-about-this/1022962/81 "2025-09-14T22:56:37Z")
Political violence should only be used as a last resort. That’s it. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2025, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-violence-is-never-the-answer-talk-to-me-about-this/1022962/82 "2025-09-14T23:29:01Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Disagree. If the assassins who had targeted Trump has succeeded, his cult of personality would’ve fallen apart and I don’t think anyone else would be able to have such a cult like hold on the republican party or republican voters the way Trump does. Or they’d have turned him into a martyr and gained even more ground with somebody smarter in change (they’d almost have to be smarter, after all). More to the point , even if you’re correct that would be a classic “exception that proves the rule”; that _doesn’t_ happen with most political assassinations. It’s rare for killing a political leader to do more than make a martyr while somebody else steps into their boots. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2025, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-violence-is-never-the-answer-talk-to-me-about-this/1022962/83 "2025-09-15T01:09:48Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Or they’d have turned him into a martyr and gained even more ground with somebody smarter in change (they’d almost have to be smarter, after all). > > More to the point , even if you’re correct that would be a classic “exception that proves the rule”; that _doesn’t_ happen with most political assassinations. It’s rare for killing a political leader to do more than make a martyr while somebody else steps into their boots. I disagree. Again, I think Stalin is a good example. When he was gone, the people who took over were far less destructive. I agree that a far smarter, more competent version of Trump is very dangerous. And its possible there are endless dozens of people like that lurking in the background, waiting to take over his cult of SDO and RWA followers. I just don’t know if any of them would be able to capture the hearts and minds of Trumps followers. Endless republicans have tried to be the next Trump, and so far all have failed. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2025, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-violence-is-never-the-answer-talk-to-me-about-this/1022962/84 "2025-09-15T16:13:24Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Again, I think Stalin is a good example. When he was gone, the people who took over were far less destructive. And Trump is nowhere near as bad as Stalin (so far). Why assume that he isn’t the Lenin to some _future_ Stalin? ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2025, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-violence-is-never-the-answer-talk-to-me-about-this/1022962/85 "2025-09-15T16:23:46Z")
Its a valid counterargument, but who is to say the next guy won’t be Khrushchev to Stain? Its impossible to know. But so far, everyone who has tried to capture Trump’s cult has failed. But a future Trump who isn’t severely mentally ill with malignant narcissism and dementia, and who has a high IQ would be far more dangerous. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2025, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-violence-is-never-the-answer-talk-to-me-about-this/1022962/86 "2025-09-15T16:46:42Z")
> [@Cmyers1980](#): > > Political violence should only be used as a last resort. That’s it. Which doesn’t mean much when everyone who use claims that it _was_ the last resort because nothing else could have worked. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2025, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-violence-is-never-the-answer-talk-to-me-about-this/1022962/87 "2025-09-15T17:04:54Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > But so far, everyone who has tried to capture Trump’s cult has failed. That is in no small part because Trump has still been alive, and displacing the existing leader of a cult means undermining them rather than just aping their rhetoric. A deceased leader, on the other hand, can be exalted and their reputation inflated, used to justify any calumniation or magniloquence. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2025, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-violence-is-never-the-answer-talk-to-me-about-this/1022962/88 "2025-09-16T10:03:01Z")
> [@Cmyers1980](#): > > Political violence should only be used as a last resort. That’s it. To clarify what I think of as “last resort”: Even if you’re under an authoritarian government that has completely rigged the elections in their favor, one should still try to exhaust all non-violent means of resisting. Because even in cases where you can’t vote in a new government, we’ve still seen nonviolent methods work. The Downfall of Communism in Eastern Europe happened largely nonviolently. Nonviolent resistance relies on your enemies having a conscience though. Gandhi’s Independence movement worked because the British Empire had a conscience and felt bad about mowing down protesters with machine gun fire. If Gandhi were dealing with the Nazis, they wouldn’t have cared about that. ---
**Author:** ![Cmyers1980](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyers1980/32/11814_2.png) [@Cmyers1980](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cmyers1980)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2025, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-violence-is-never-the-answer-talk-to-me-about-this/1022962/89 "2025-09-16T18:41:34Z")
A good question is are you obligated to exhaust all non violent means before resorting to violence if the regime in question is sufficiently bad? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2025, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-violence-is-never-the-answer-talk-to-me-about-this/1022962/90 "2025-09-16T18:50:29Z")
Would not exhausting all non-violent means before resorting to violence give the violent regime more than enough time to cement their position? They are not in the habit of sitting back and doing nothing while letting you “take your turn”. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2025, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-violence-is-never-the-answer-talk-to-me-about-this/1022962/91 "2025-09-16T19:04:11Z")
> [@Cmyers1980](#): > > A good question is are you obligated to exhaust all non violent means before resorting to violence if the regime in question is sufficiently bad? That’s a very interesting question actually. Are some regimes so purely evil that we shouldn’t even bother to try non-violent resistance, and go straight to the violence? I decided to look up whether there were any effective nonviolent protest against the Nazis, and I discovered there was one called the [Rossentrasse Protest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenstrasse_protest). In summary: In 1943, there were 1800 Jewish men married to German women that were arrested and held for detention on Rosentrasse street in Berlin. The wives and mothers of the men gathered together to protest. They stood outside in the freezing cold, and refused to disperse even when told they would be shot. The end result? Fearing the public relations disaster of shooting hundreds of German women, the Nazi regime eventually relented and released these men. Most of them survived the war. Historians debate the significance of this. Was this simply a fluke, or does it suggest that other nonviolent resistance could have possibly worked against the Nazis? It’s something to think about at least. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2025, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-violence-is-never-the-answer-talk-to-me-about-this/1022962/92 "2025-09-16T22:13:11Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Would not exhausting all non-violent means before resorting to violence give the violent regime more than enough time to cement their position? They are not in the habit of sitting back and doing nothing while letting you “take your turn”. Highly contingent on the unique circumstances one is living under. Dealing with Hitler in 1933 is going to be different from Hitler in 1943. I’m not sure when it becomes “too late” for nonviolence to work. ---
**Author:** ![Cmyers1980](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyers1980/32/11814_2.png) [@Cmyers1980](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cmyers1980)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2025, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-violence-is-never-the-answer-talk-to-me-about-this/1022962/93 "2025-09-16T23:32:12Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Would not exhausting all non-violent means before resorting to violence give the violent regime more than enough time to cement their position? It’s plausible. I was speaking more in moral terms than practical ones but a sufficiently evil regime would make even peaceful resistance very difficult. The Nazis executed teenagers for distributing pamphlets. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2025, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-violence-is-never-the-answer-talk-to-me-about-this/1022962/94 "2025-10-03T17:23:59Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > Fearing the public relations disaster of shooting hundreds of **German** women Key point there, they weaponized their privilege, in the modern parlance. How would this have worked out if these women had been Jewish, Polish, or Roma? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/political-violence-is-never-the-answer-talk-to-me-about-this/1022962.md?page=4)