Across time, politics has relied on coercion and conflict ranging from violent words to public acts of murder as shows of power. Our modern-day American politics are not immune to these tendencies. Built in to the original constitution of the United States is the root of all manners of violent penalties and persecution that have been imposed upon transgressors of the white supremacist basis for much of American culture, law, and history.

In this Olio, we’ll discuss the role of violence in other socio-political structures, such as monarchies and totalitarian states, that are absolutely reliant on the use of institutional, organized, socially sanctioned violence to maintain power. We’ll examine how violence, collective and individual, is woven through the political fabric of our own history, and how governments have consistently come to, and maintained, power by violent means.