How Trump is promoting domestic terrorism against his enemies
In case you missed it,
…are now fighting back like never before. There is so much GUILT by Democrats/Clinton, and now the facts are pouring out. DO SOMETHING!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2017
“DO SOMETHING”? Salon‘s Chauncey DeVega explains why this ragetweet is ominous:
Trump’s “DO SOMETHING” is also an example of what has been called stochastic terrorism, in which right-wing politicians, their toadies in the media and conservative opinion leaders repeatedly threaten violence against liberals, progressives and Democrats — and then act shocked when said outcome actually happens.
Psychologist Valeria Tarico explains the elements of stochastic terrorism in more detail:
- A public figure with access to the airwaves or pulpit demonizes a person or group of persons.
- With repetition, the targeted person or group is gradually dehumanized, depicted as loathsome and dangerous — arousing a combustible combination of fear and moral disgust.
- Violent images and metaphors, jokes about violence, analogies to past “purges” against reviled groups, use of righteous religious language — all of these typically stop just short of an explicit call to arms.
- When violence erupts, the public figures who have incited the violence condemn it — claiming no one could possibly have foreseen the “tragedy.”
In this moment the possibility of violence is very real. Donald Trump is the champion of white supremacists, neo-Nazis and right-wing militias. These are groups which collectively have killed hundreds of people in the United States since 2007, and are considered by federal and other law enforcement agencies to be a greater threat than Islamic terrorism.
Trump’s threatening tweet came hours before the press learned the specifics of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s indictments of Paul Manafort and Richard Gates — and the guilty plea entered by George Papadopoulos. It suggests that Trump is unable to restrain his authoritarianism, and genuinely wishes his enemies dead.
Trump needs to be removed from office. Republicans now face a stark choice, and Max Boot is not optimistic:
If Trump were to use his authority as president to try to shut down the special counsel investigation, he would be guilty of obstruction of justice and should be impeached. But as a practical matter impeachment would only be possible if Democrats win a majority of the House next year and a number of Senate Republicans are willing to convict the president. Republicans, in other words, could soon be forced to choose whether they are loyal to the rule of law or the rule of Trump. I fear that by this point the “rule of law” caucus will constitute only a small minority of a once-proud party.
And who “owns” the Republican Party? K Street special interests who seek to empower large corporations and institutional shareholders, and pack the court with judges who will grant corporations greater rights than individuals. They don’t want rule of law; they are desperate for rule of money.
Trump is their man, and the members of Trump’s racist, know-nothing, violence-prone stooge “base” are just fine with them.
