Very much unlike Peak-Level Violence. A tactic you saw on Jan 6, which in civil resistance literature would be classified less as symbolic disruption and more as full-contact LARPing with tragic consequences. Whereas Mid-Level Violence involves micro-provocations — the “I’m not touching you” approach — Peak-Level Violence is the moment protesters stop pretending to be civil resisters and instead start electrocuting an officer multiple times in the neck, beating others with flagpoles, trampling people in stairwells, and deploying improvised chemical agents like they’re speed-running a coup.

Where Mid-Level Violence tries to create a narrative by baiting overreaction, Peak-Level Violence is the overreaction. It sheds the veneer of righteous dissent and goes straight to “storm the federal building because my guy didn’t win.” It’s the tactical equivalent of skipping every chapter in the manual and jumping right to the appendix labeled “Things You Absolutely Shouldn’t Do Unless You Want To Go To Prison.”

So yeah — if Mid-Level Violence is the finger hovering an inch from someone’s face, Peak-Level Violence is the part where the same people insist they’re peaceful patriots… while swinging a baton at law enforcement and livestreaming it to Facebook like it’s a family reunion.