‘The Kindling Is a Lot Drier Than It Used to Be'

How does political violence come to an end? It's been a lingering question the last few years in the wake of shocking episodes like the Jan. 6 Capitol riot or the assassination attempts on Donald Trump.
And it's become newly pressing following the antisemitic fallout of the Israel-Hamas war on American soil. In the last two weeks, we've seentwo Israeli embassy workers fatally shot in Washington, D.C. andeight members of the Jewish community burned in an attack in Boulder, Colorado. There has also beenviolence against Muslims andpeople of Palestinian descent since the war began.
William J. Bernstein, a neurologist and the author ofThe Delusions of Crowds, a book about the consequences of mass hysteria in history, expects the waves of political violence to eventually stop — but perhaps not until we reach a terrible episode that serves as a tipping point.
'Eventually, they burn themselves out because it's so awful,' he said in an interview with POLITICO Magazine.
It's a cycle that's been repeated throughout history, Bernstein says: After that extreme moment of violence, the attacks fizzle out — from exhaustion, or even just the lack of novelty. Getting to that end point, however, will be a painful one, and our political system isn't built to soften the blow.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Some people believe we are seeing an increase in political violence in our country, most recently as a surge in antisemitic attacks in response to Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza. What is causing this?
I think it's a combination of the Manichean mindset and group dynamics and confirmation bias.
The Manichean mindset — this in-group, out-group kind of behavior — you can see historically, and you can also demonstrate experimentally in psychology labs. It's extremely widespread, and it's extremely pervasive. The other thing, which we're just starting to get a handle on, is how genetically determined it is. So if you look, for example, at twin studies, and you look at the psychological characteristics of twins, they're highly concordant. And one of the things that's been looked at is the tendency toward binary thinking; that is Manichean thinking.
The sort of online communities and social media communities that form around these issues, I think, attract those kinds of people. But that's not a new phenomenon. We probably would have seen the same thing in anarchist groups 100 years ago.
Online communities are more accessible though, right?
Yeah, I think that the kindling is a lot drier than it used to be.
What drives political violence? Is it beliefs, grievances, or something else?
It's like any complex sociological, sociopolitical phenomenon. It's multifactorial. There's the genetic component toward binary thinking. There's the thing that we've already talked about, which is the increased herding of people that's been brought by social media. But there are genuine grievances. There's always a genuine grievance involved. And it's easy enough to see what those grievances are. I mean, what's a good life? A good life is being able to afford a house and being able to afford medical care and education for your children and being able to afford retirement and not being crept with debt up to your ears while doing all those things. Most people feel at least two or three of those things, if not all four of those things.
I think one thing that the political right in this country understands to a devastating effect is that identity trumps self-interest. How many times a day does someone remark to you, 'I just don't understand the political right. They're going to lose their Social Security, they're going to lose their Medicaid. Their kids aren't going to be getting preschool paid for. They can't afford medical care. Why are they voting for Republicans?' And the answer is because Donald Trump knows how to push the identity — the us versus them — button.
A few years ago, there was a lot of concern about violence coming from the political right, but the attacks of the past few weeks seem to be coming more from the political left. Is some kind of shift taking place?
I don't think so. I think there is some epidemiological and even functional [brain] imaging evidence that the right is a little more prone toward conspiracy thinking and Manichean thinking. But there are plenty of Manichean people on the left, too. I mean, a lot of Manichean behavior, most of it was located on the left 60 years ago. I would even say it's just noise in an oscillating system.
You've written about the consequences of mass mania in your book The Delusions of Crowds. How does mass mania contribute to the political violence we're seeing in the U.S. right now?
If you put a bunch of people in a room, and let's say you're talking about abortion. Let's say there's a median position on abortion, it's exactly right in the middle. So there's a zero, which is people who are absolute anti-abortion opponents. And then you have a 10, which is people who are rabidly pro-abortion. Well, if you put a bunch of people together who are a six, what you see happening is that they slide off to that side because they want to seek the approval of the group, and they find that by making more and more extreme statements, they can garner more approval. So when you put people together like that, their opinions tend toward the extremes, either one or the other. And eventually, you get to the point where you're advocating violence. I think it's just a natural progression of that sociological phenomenon.
The classic type where you saw this happen was with people who were concerned about the Covid-19 vaccine. And it started out with the moms' groups: 'Should I get my kids vaccinated? I have some concerns. I want to talk about this and be better informed.' You put a bunch of people like that together, and pretty soon, that morphs into political violence.
Is there anything that U.S. politicians — on the left or right — could do to tamp down on anti-Israel or antisemitic political violence in the United States?
I'm pretty cynical. The answer I would give you is nothing that will improve their vote count. The name of the game these days is to energize your base, particularly with our primary-based system.
Do you think our existing system rewards political violence?
I think so, yeah. I'm old enough to remember when there wasn't a lot of ideological difference between Democrats and Republicans. If you did a Venn diagram of their policy positions, there was a lot of overlap. Now there's almost no overlap.
With the primary-based system, what's going to happen is that it favors extremism on both sides. Now what's the solution to that? It would be nice if we had an open primary system. It would be nice if we had more objectively and rationally drawn congressional districts. Those two things would help, but to depend upon the goodwill of ordinary politicians in the public interest of our political class these days, and particularly, the way that elections are funded, I think that's a very, very big ask.
A year ago, you told an Atlantic reporter that you don't think political violence 'ends without some sort of cathartic cataclysm.' Can you expand on what that means? What does a 'cathartic cataclysm' look like?
Well, I think a cathartic cataclysm is when you see law enforcement officers in masks, snatching people into vans and shipping them abroad, or at least to Louisiana, because they have a political opinion. I mean, that's state violence. And let's call a spade a spade: The assassination attempt on Donald Trump during the election campaign was probably politically motivated as well.
But what's a cathartic turning point look like? Well, a cathartic turning point looks like an awful piece of mass violence. It would have to be an episode of mass violence that is directly attributable to an easily identifiable political player. I thought Jan. 6 was that, but I guess Jan. 6 wasn't cataclysmic enough.
What comes after the 'cathartic cataclysm?' Can there be a moment of reckoning that means less political violence for a while?
Well, people just get sick of the violence. It's what happened in all major civil wars. Eventually, they burn themselves out because it's so awful. It's what happened in Northern Ireland. It hasn't happened in the Middle East yet, in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but eventually it does happen.
I can remember back in the '60s, early '70s, it felt like the political violence was never going to end. I mean, if you were an Italian in the '60s or the '70s, major political and judicial figures, including prime ministers, were getting bumped off on a regular basis. And it seemed like it was never going to end, but it did. It seemed like the anarchist violence of the early 20th century — it lasted for a couple of decades, killed the U.S. president — it seemed that was never going to end either, but it does. These things burn themselves out. I guess the best way of putting it is that human beings seek novelty, and after a while, political violence gets to be old hat and uncool.
What's an example of cathartic violence from history?
Well, I think that the political violence of the late 1960s was cathartic. You had the assassination of the U.S. president, of Martin Luther King, of Bobby Kennedy. And then it stopped. People shied away from political violence. Exactly why it stopped, I don't know, but it did. It wasn't just assassinations, it was also street violence. And then things calmed down. If I had to come up with a reason why, it's that people get bored. Initially, politically posturing and making violent threats gets you admiration and psychological support from other people, but eventually it gets old, and people stop doing it.
Do you see the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol or last year's attempted assassination of Donald Trump as having contributed to the political violence we're seeing today? Is all of this building up in our society?
Yeah. And unfortunately, a big part of that is institutional. I mean, what does it say when you commit violent crimes en masse and then the president of the United States pardons you? It basically tells people, 'Yeah, you've got a free pass the next time.'
In that previous interview, you suggested that the Jan. 6 riot wasn't a turning point for political violence in our nation, because it didn't end up worse — there wasn't a 'cathartic cataclysm' with the killing of a politician, for instance. Is there any way to subdue violence without having to embrace that kind of extreme ending? How do we lower the temperature in America?
If you're lucky, it burns itself out without a cataclysmic event. And I stand by what I said, which is that, had they actually killed Mike Pence, I think that would have ended it right there.

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