Ayman: Do Lone Wolf Wolves Resort to Violence When the Gov’t Isn’t Representative of the People’s Will?

MOHYELDIN: “Mayor De Blasio, do you believe there’s a correlation between how efficiently our democracy and our government runs and the risk of political violence, that when people out there who feel a sense of desperation — and by no means is this a justification, but I’m thinking of Luigi Mangione, who killed in cold blood the CEO of a health care insurance — health care company — do you believe when people don’t have any political outlets, when the government or the system is not representative of the will of the people, these lone wolves, these self-radicalized people then resort to this type of violence? Or do you believe this type of violence will always exist in our society, no matter how efficiently our system of governance works?”
De Blasio: “There has always been, through history, a correlation to the political moment and whether society is serving people or not. That does not — there’s never a justification for political violence. It doesn’t mean it can’t be — of course, there will be lone wolves in any time. But let’s look at, you know, the facts. In the times in American history that were much calmer, where there was much less violence, we’ve seen many of those times in the post-World War II era, and then we saw 60s was a time of great political violence, these last years as well, where the level of political conflict intensified and, of course, where there were those voices giving a permission structure. In the 60s, don’t forget, it wasn’t just the assassinations, it was the Ku Klux Klan, you know, was the fact that civil rights protesters were met with state violence by local sheriffs, you know, what happened to Freedom Riders in the south. I mean, this was either authorized by state actors or off-duty state actors in many cases. So this stuff doesn’t happen accidentally. There’s powerful forces behind it in many cases. But I think it’s also fair to say that when the public in general feels that society is serving them, when there’s a sense of belonging, when there’s a sense of people being included and respected, it takes the temperature down, it gives less oxygen for fringe elements or violent elements to exist. And I think we can get back there. But it will take, bluntly, defeating Trumpism and taking away that permission structure that it’s created, and showing people that there can be a path to a society that’s inclusive once again.”