Yet in nearly every case that the researchers examined in detail—including the Women’s March and the pro–gun control March for Our Lives, which brought out more than 3 million demonstrators—they could find no evidence that protesters changed minds or affected electoral behavior.
The question is whether we will keep pretending that only broken glass and spilled blood count as violence and ignore the systems that made the explosion inevitable.
To say “violence has no place in politics” while ignoring systemic harm is to defend the status quo, not peace. True nonviolence would mean dismantling the conditions that make desperate, explosive violence seem like the only option left.