By chance, I happened to mention exactly this to a friend of mine last night:
Are you aware how much the constant threat of violence, principally from MAGA sources, is now warping American politics? If you wonder why so few people in red America seem to stand up directly against the MAGA movement, are you aware of the price they might pay if they did?
....Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing Trump’s federal Jan. 6 trial, has been swatted, as has the special counsel Jack Smith.... The Colorado Supreme Court likewise endured terrible threats after it ruled that Trump was disqualified from the ballot.... Mitt Romney faces so many threats that he spends $5,000 per day on security to protect his family. After Jan. 6, the former Republican congressman Peter Meijer said that at least one colleague voted not to certify the election out of fear for the safety of their family.... In 2021, Reuters published a horrifying and comprehensive report detailing the persistent threats against local election workers.
It's telling that this comes from David French, who is sensitive to it—and willing to talk about it—because he and his family have been persistently under threat thanks to his anti-MAGA stand.
So far, these threats have been generally hollow. They come from angry Trump supporters who want to intimidate their opponents, not kill them. But that's how it's started in other times and places too, and there's not much question that it's inspired by Donald Trump himself. He approves the violence of January 6. He constantly threatens to throw Joe Biden in jail when he becomes president. He's going to sweep up and deport every illegal immigrant in the country. His top generals deserve to be killed for opposing him. The language of anger and violence is not even below the surface of everything Trump says. It's right out in the open.
I have limited sympathy for some of these guys, like French, who ignored it until it was them who were targeted. When it was just hate crimes and discrimination, they didn't lift a finger.
They're reaping what they sowed.
And yet we still haven't gotten the media to talk about this stuff without couching or normalizing it.
"I have limited sympathy for some of these guys,"
Yeah, but, big tent and all that. I don't necessarily care too much about the purity of the motives one has (or how long a road to damascus one walked) if that one is also going to oppose electing a horrible person.
French excluded, most of these Republicans openly or secretly fretting about all the violence in their party still aren’t publicly supporting Biden, raising money for Biden or even committing to voting for Biden.
Fuck them. They’re reaping what they sowed.
"Fuck them. They’re reaping what they sowed"
Yeah, but we're getting reaped right along with them. On the particular question of whether or not to support small-d democratic government, I favor making it as easy as possible for people to leave the Trump camp in favor of the democracy tent.
So they leave the Trump camp, but for what?
They still want to control women’s bodies. They still shill for billionaires. They still would imprison trans people and strip gay people of all rights. They still want to install a theocracy. They still think white men suffer more discrimination than anyone else in America.
They just view Trump as a bit tacky, and regret that his “rough edges” make it harder for them to enact their agenda.
There is a difference between having bad opinions on normal controversies that can be sorted out through the democratic process, and wanting to overthrow the republic. Trump wants to overthrow the republic. He literally tried to overthrow the republic. Making common cause among all people who don't want the republic overthrown makes sense. We can argue with them about all those other controversies once the republic is no longer in danger.
And thus Crissa shrugged.
It’s just that it creates an atmosphere of unending belligerence…which gets passed off as being strong….when it’s just bullying
i'd guess that 99 percent of this is bluster. extremely unpleasant bluster for the targets to say the least. but still bluster. the problem is the one percent that isn't. all it takes is one sick individual. the blood spilled will be on trump's hands.
Totally. Because I think you understand, there are no respawns. And that's why that bluster is so dangerous. Especially in this country. With all that engineered steel and ammunition laying around. It's a powder keg.
I'm not suggesting civil war or revolution, I'm suggesting that bluster is evolutionarily designed as combat without injury, but when Chad over there is strapped...or even Cecil when he's bullied. And those seconds last forever if a bullet finds its mark. Or more perversely because of the power of modern weapons, the unintended marks.
This now has a name: "Stochastic Terrorism" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_terrorism
Stochastic Terrorism. That's a phrase I never heard of until the Trump administration. (Wikipedia claims it predates Trump 2016 by a decade or so.) But I think it sums up these folks nicely. They're adding "noise" to the system, and they know it will inevitably lead to certain outcomes, but since they don't know the exact time or exact place or exact form, they can maintain deniability. But just because the specific form and timing of the outcomes aren't predictable doesn't mean that the cause and effect aren't real, and that we don't need to find a way to hold them accountable.
Bruce Sterling was using the expression back in the 80's and I don't know that he ever claimed it as his own.
Precisely what Trump is the master of, and how he knew what would happen on January 6. Not in detail, of course—just that there would be a shitstorm, and that a shitstorm would ultimately be good for him.
Which it has been.
This is a job for good old fashioned law enforcement. People who try to threaten the president already get tracked down and arrested by the Secret Service; we need to crack down on people who threaten public officials and election workers and put them in jail. Most of these people won't do this if they're on notice that there will be accountability.
Justice Department, please make this a priority.
Definitely. The "little people", the ones who shoot into houses, SWAT, threaten, etc can be apprehended and often even locked up. This may provide some deterrence.
The big cheese at the top? Apparently untouchable. Endless money (from other people) to cause endless delays in his justifiable prosecutions; endless support from a federal court system that he prepared for his own misuse. It's getting too plausible that the damned electoral college, which the US has tried to abolish since 1800(!!) could put him back in power, and then it's bye-bye constitutional democracy.
Still, we need to keep trying. I'm hoping Soft Touch Merrick will resign at the end of Biden's first term and let Joe appoint a wolfhound, like maybe Jack Smith, as the next AG.
Je suis d'accord.
I'm reasonably certain that only a vanishingly small fraction of the threats against the president result in anyone being charged. There are just too many threats at all levels for law enforcement to deal with.
Kevin’s post isn’t about threats to the president.
I agree; we do need to be mindful that many agents of law enforcement use political filters when deciding what to enforce. Law enforcement tends to attract folks with a conservative philosophy.
This bluster is scaring people into paying for protection. Into not helping with elections. Into elected officials voting just to protect themselves and their family. This is not just bluster. And that 1% who act out will eventually hurt or kill someone.
See Oklahoma City Courthouse bombing.
Apostates on the right are getting the threats now, we are next in line.
It doesn't matter what you thought of French in 2015, now we can learn from him. He knows some things better than us, these are his people.
The House of representative is already controlled by violent threats. Some of the least MAGA republicans are afraid of primaries, but not all. Many of them don't dare to act against Trump and his minions because they are worried about their own and family safety. That is the reason why so many of them leaving.
It is a serious problem on its own, and even more serious problem that the media don't report it. People that are not really tuned get completely wrong view of what drives the Republican party in the House.
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
And the rest of it seems frighteningly applicable, too.
I daily visualize a mega stroke or heart attack for t-Rump and possibly put an end to most of this over the top reaction. Then maybe the police can begin to step in and jail these fools.
we need a gofundme to send four quarter pounders with extra cheese to trump for every meal
Heh! He only trusts food that his personal henchpeople have picked up and delivered to him.
np; just send the henchpeople cheeseburger gift cards
and let god sort them out
He doesn't eat cheeseburgers, he eats hamberders.
Right-wingers and conspiracy kooks have long threatened violence.
I had a parent who worked for a state environmental agency decades ago. Big actions against major polluters usually resulted in violent threats, usually threats to shoot people as they left work, but sometimes bomb threats.
Anyone who loses a child to a medical condition and is public about it (like advocating for research) can expect the anti-vaxx crowd to come after them. It doesn't even have to be a death from a vaccine-preventable disease. Any disease will do for the crackpots - clearly you murdered your child with the MMR! I know someone who is highly involved in advocacy for childhood disease research, and she often gets targeted.
Liberal politicians, civil rights movement members, and others on the left half of the political spectrum have long been targets of threats like this.
It's just that Republican lawmakers and pundits are being subjected to it now. You'd think they'd clutch their massive collection of guns and forge ahead, but nope. They tend to wilt in the face of danger.
Meanwhile my mother just brownbagged her lunch, because that meant a shooter had just one opportunity a day - instead of two - to put a bullet in her.
May she be safe...and may her anxiety be slight.
My stepbrother has the unenviable job of sampling the water in Puget Sound to check for failing septic tanks. The rednecks up on the bluffs know exactly what he’s doing, and they stand there aiming shotguns at him. He wears an orange vest, but he’s spent years wondering if he will come home to his kids.
(A failed septic tank on valuable waterfront property likely cannot be replaced or can only be done so at great expense.)
When the far right makes up its own history to downplay European colonialism or to "argue" about abortion or transgender, it's not really about arguing. It's a statement of intentions. They want doctors to die with bombs, they want queer people to die in prison, they want refugees to die in camps.
And the way you scare off terrorism is power in numbers. You tell the country to look for sanity.
People often talk about a new Civil War in America, which is maybe an exaggeration. Another Fort Sumpter or secessionist movement isn’t on the horizon, but I think we’re darn close to the “bleeding Kansas” stage of that previous trauma.
The goobers will off themselves faster than we think from Covid, alcohol, tobacco, opiates, impaired driving, obesity, diabetes, and—of course—firearms.
As the "Troubles" in Ulster teach us, threats of violence and violence on one side trigger the emotions of the idiots on the other side and you can slide down a slippery slope to an "eye for an eye" and tit for tat.
About a year ago I was at my friendly restaurant/bar and heard an elderly couple speak Spanish. I surmised they were from Argentina but actually they were from Uruguay. We ended up talking about things including how the US border itself is like it’s own country. Suddenly, this younger man came at me and started yelling and wanted to take it outside. He was asked to leave. Amazing how a total stranger is willing to commit a felony because he heard people speak Spanish and/or discuss the border as being porous. I should have bought him a tequila.
I live in Maine's 2nd District, and I've got friends on local town councils and school boards who have gotten threats, mostly simply because they are registered D. We've had folk from out of town come in and try to get books banned, inflaming the locals so inclined into action.
The only real good news is that the devoted Trumpsters who might be persuadable to vote something else are also not so proud about hanging their Trump banners and flags as they were just a weeks ago.
Some of it may indeed be empty threats, but it makes threatening behavior normal; and so it chews away at the edges of civility.
One of my friends will not run for re-election; the other has not made up their mind; and hopes things will cool before that time next year.
I worry about this, and the broader issue of anti-democratic actors using the machinery of democracy to kill it.
I tried to write more a couple of times, but it devolved into violent revenge fantasies, so I deleted them. But I do despise them thoroughly.
Remember the riots? The barriers and protections all the stores were putting up before the election? And the minute Biden won, they were all taken away.
I absolutely agree that the right has unpleasant tendencies to threaten and bluster but for sheer damage, I don't think the left has the standing to point fingers.
OK City bombing
dylan roof/emanuel african methodist episcopal church
pittsburgh synagogue shooting
The Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church Shooting was a mass shooting that occurred on July 27, 2008[2] when an unemployed Tennessee truck driver named Jim David Adkisson went on a shooting rampage at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. Adkisson opened fire on members of the congregation during a church youth performance, killing two people and wounding six others before he was restrained by church members; according to police, he had planned to keep shooting until the police arrived and killed him.[3][4] A letter, or "manifesto", found in his vehicle after the shooting attributed his motivation for the rampage as a hatred of liberals, Democrats, African Americans, and homosexuals.[5] In the letter he also described what he believed to be the cult-like atmosphere of the church. Adkisson pled guilty to two counts of murder and received a sentence of life in prison without parole.[3]
Knoxville Unitarian Universalist church shooting
I have a friend who was a member of that church at the time, but did not attend worship that day.
the shooter's ex-wife was also a member
apparently 'love thy neighbor' is not to be tolerated in today's republican party
The "left" has a tendency to destroy property for political reasons. It doesn't happen all that often, but every few years there is some precipitating event that inspires protests that result in property damage. Once in a while you'll get an actual organized attempt at property damage - ELF burning things down, lab mice release, or those people who throw soup at paintings. Deaths are very rare, and are almost never the goal.
The "right" likes to kill people as their first move. They don't set the vegan Co-op on fire, and some unlucky homeless guy out back dies. Oh, no. They shoot up churches or women's health clinics. They bomb places full of people. Killing is the point. And there are multiple cases every year.
You apparently can't read. I didn't say the right was better. Just not worse.
Pretty clearly cephalopod can read and dismembered your 'both sides' argument by showing that the right is worse in this regard.
They didn't subside with the election. They had tailed off by September so eff your false equivalency.
It's not false equivalency. The left riots. A lot. And where did I say they were active at the time of the election? Quite the contrary--they were worried about the riots starting up again, and they worried about the left.
And fuck off yourself.
You said "And the minute Biden won, they were all taken away."
ColBat reminded you that you were completely wrong on the timing.
You do look silly with your false equivalency/both sides argument.
Not just silly, but he pretty much looks like a fascist.
David French: "If you wonder why so few people in red America seem to stand up directly against the MAGA movement, are you aware of the price they might pay if they did?"
Isn't that exactly what happened with the rise of the Ku Klux Klan? Maybe you didn't like the idea of Black folk in town getting lynched, but were you going to stop it? Maybe after a while, you get numb to it, uncaring. Maybe that one deserved what he had coming.
What ever happened to the KKK? They took off their hoods and took over the Republican Party, and in polite society they call themselves the MAGA movement.
You can say a lot about the threat of violence from the right-wing, racist, Republican Party, but one thing you can't say is that it's a surprise.
Have you ever read ‘In the Garden of Beasts,’ by Erik Larson? Tell me we’ve not witnessing a replay.
And yet, Kevin has told us many times that things are really going quite well in the US, and that our problems are overestimated.
And yet, there is this underlying and growing violence and threat of violence. How does one square these two realities? Could it be that there is a connection between the two?
Trump and his MAGA are so dumb, they don't understand karma -- that actions have consequences that eventually catch up.
Half a billion dollars in fines and jury awards didn't come from nothing. Another four criminal trials coming. All that violent rhetoric doesn't just disappear into the ether. All those "tourists" on January 6 aren't "winning".
He deserves everything that's coming for him.
Working-out to a cool $1.825 million a year. Which even for him is a significant quantity.
You can't be a successful authoritarian without getting enough people to be willing to act against their own self-interest by being too frightened to act in their own self-interest.
The fact that SWATting works is on the police departments, not the other fascists. Defunding the police would be one way to address the issue. Certainly police departments should have some ability to look up who they will be SWATting and make an informed guess as to whether they should really knock down the front door and/or throw a flash-bang and tear-gas through the front window.
And not mentioning Mr. Fienstein being assaulted by the fasicsts seems like an oversight...
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