A shelter-in-place warning in downtown Minneapolis. Photograph Source: SavagePanda845 (Elliot F) – CC BY 4.0

The cold truth is this: political violence works. The assassination and attempted assassination of two Minnesota state legislators remind us again that violence is not just a tragedy—it is a tactic. In democratic societies, people are taught to condemn such actions and to see them as aberrations. Yet the historical record tells us something far more uncomfortable: political violence is effective, and that is why it continues.

People cling to the idea that political violence is not only immoral but counterproductive. If it were truly ineffective, rational actors would abandon it. But they have not. Too often, political violence delivers results—through intimidation, disruption, or the outright removal of opposition.

Consider the 20th and 21st centuries: the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, the Khmer Rouge’s massacres in Cambodia, Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, the ongoing repression of Uyghurs in China, and the violent persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar. Each was a brutal campaign to eliminate a people, and though they did not achieve total eradication, they succeeded in redrawing borders, consolidating power, and annihilating political threats. Some argue that Israeli actions in Gaza amount to genocidal violence. These acts were not random; they were strategic,........

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