Bret Devereaux

...that is power. Power arises out of legitimacy, it arises out of cultural norms, it arises out of reciprocity with authority. Foolish leaders mistake violence for a kind of power - this is Arendt's key point. They think more violence=more power... 7/16

...but that's wrong. Where you have power, you don't need violence. And where you use violence *you*don't*have*power.* The very *use* of violence erodes power, because it strikes at the legitimacy that power arises from. 8/16

The President routinely mistakes violence for power in this way. He is suggesting that he can use the military - which trades in violence, rather than power - to restore order. And sure, the military can clear the streets. It will be ugly, it will cause damage...9/16

...but they can do it. But the military cannot reestablish *power* - they cannot restore legitimacy. Negotiation can do that. Compromise can do that. Community leaders can do that. Elected officials standing together can do that. 10/16

A country can hold another country by force, if they have enough of it. That's what empire is. Clever empires convert that into power as quickly as possible - the Romans did it by co-opting local elites, using their legitimacy as the foundation of Roman power. 11/16

But no country can hold *itself* by force, or through violence for very long. Because the country is the base that generates the force. Even tyrants and dictators have to establish legitimacy and power; they put lots of effort into it. 12/16

The Civil War suggests that you can, in fact, hold a country together through the sheer application of violence. The South never did rise again.

The United States used the power it wielded in the North to raise an army (87% volunteers - that's *power*, not force). That's using power to raise force in order to apply violence. That said, the history is still more complex than this...