What do you do when someone at a political rally punches you in the face? You turn the other cheek.
People who get into street fights already brag about taking hits. Of course they also love giving them. How about being proud of taking hits while exercising the self restraint needed to not punch back?
Street violence is a tool among many, and is hardly decisive. Its purpose is to generate crises that other tools of politics make use of. It’s a lubricant for intrigue. It doesn’t work when one side refuses to fight. False flags are impossible when one side is ideologically committed to non-violence.
Power is the ability not to compel, but to ignore. To endure the violence of aggressors without succumbing and punching back is the maintenance of power.
Street battles don’t determine political outcomes, they only gratify tribal instincts.
