Trump has made individuals and institutions targets for his cult followers
ROBERT REICH
in robertreich.substack.com
 |
| By Ed Wexler |
"Our
country is now a cesspool of crime," Trump said in a recent speech to
the America First Policy Institute. "We have blood, death, and suffering
on a scale once unthinkable because of the Democrat Party's effort to destroy
and dismantle law enforcement all throughout America."
The
truth is that although Americans experience far more gun violence than the
inhabitants of other advanced nations, that's largely because of widespread gun
ownership—championed, encouraged, and defended by Republican
lawmakers.
As
to recent violence, shootings are down 4 percent this
year compared to the same time last year. In big cities, murders are down 3 percent.
If the decrease in murders continues for the rest of 2022, it will be the first
year since 2018 in which they fell in the U.S.
The
larger threat of violence is coming from Trump Republicans whose incendiary
statements are fueling violence and threats of violence across America. In the
year and a half since a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, such threats
and attacks have escalated.
Yesterday, a federal jury found Barry Croft and Adam Fox guilty in a plot to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer at her summer home and to blow up a bridge that would stop rescuers from reaching her. They hoped to spark a second American Revolution.
The
Trump Republican violence machine is affecting—and sometimes
intimidating— election workers,
flight attendants, school board
officials, librarians, members of the Biden administration,
and members of
Congress.
In
Houston, a former Marine stepped down as the grand marshal of a July 4 parade
after a deluge of
threats that focused on her support of transgender rights. A few
weeks later, the gay mayor of an
Oklahoma city quit his job after what he described as a series
of "threats and attacks bordering on violence." His tires were
slashed, he was harassed by residents at a council meeting, and followed near
his home. "I was afraid what would they do next if I don't step
down."
As
I mentioned yesterday, Dr. Anthony Fauci and his family have received credible
death threats and required a security detail. In December, authorities in
Iowa arrested a California man with an assault rifle and
ammunition, and a "hit list" that named Dr. Fauci and Joe Biden, among
others. Congresswoman Liz Cheney has also received credible death threats, and
also has a security detail.
Threats
have been issued against the federal judge who authorized the warrant to search
for classified material at Mar-a-Lago, and against his family.
(In
that search, F.B.I. agents carted away boxes of highly sensitive documents.)
During that search—from which F.B.I. agents carted away boxes of highly sensitive material—Trump described his home as "under siege." In the wake of the search, Trump's social media platform, Truth Social, erupted in calls for violence. Twitter saw a tenfold increase in posts mentioning "civil war" (according to Dataminr, a tool that analyzes Twitter data).
There was
also a spike in social media users calling for "violence toward law
enforcement," as Representatives Carolyn B. Maloney, chairwoman of the
House Oversight Committee, and Stephen Lynch, chairman of its National Security
Subcommittee, noted in a letter last
week to eight social media companies.
Republican lawmakers have fueled the fire. Representative Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader, has accused the Justice Department of being "weaponized" against Trump. Senator Rick Scott, Republican of Florida, and Representative Lauren Boebert, Republican of Colorado, have drawn comparisons between the F.B.I. and the Nazi secret police.
Joe Kent, a Trump-endorsed House candidate
in Washington State, charged (on a podcast run by Stephen Bannon) that
"we're at war." Kari Lake, the Republican nominee for governor of
Arizona, declared: "These tyrants will stop at nothing to silence the
patriots who are working hard to save America," adding that, "if we accept
it, America is dead."
The
incendiary talk has led to violence. On August 11, a Trump supporter identified as
Ricky W. Shiffer mounted an armed attack on an F.B.I. office in
Ohio, and was killed. According to a subsequent review of his social media
posts, Shiffer was incensed about the search at Mar-a-Lago and wanted revenge.
Robert
Pape, a professor at the University of Chicago who studies political violence,
has conducted half a dozen nationwide polls since the Jan. 6 attack on the
Capitol and repeatedly found that between 15
million and 20 million American adults believe that violence
would be justified to return Trump to office.
Trump's
claim that America has become more violent and dangerous over the last year and
a half is true. But this is not because of Biden and the Democrats. It is
largely because of Trump—and the Republican violence machine he has created.
©
2021 robertreich.substack.com
Robert Reich, is
the Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California,
Berkeley, and a senior fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He
served as secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time
magazine named him one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the
twentieth century. His book include: "Aftershock"
(2011), "The Work of Nations" (1992), "Beyond Outrage"
(2012) and, "Saving Capitalism" (2016). He is also a founding
editor of The American Prospect magazine, former chairman of Common Cause, a
member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the
award-winning documentary, "Inequality For All." Reich's newest book
is "The Common Good"
(2019). He's co-creator of the Netflix original documentary "Saving
Capitalism," which is streaming now.
