Why Does Trump Encourage Rioters, and What Effect Is It Having on Public Health?

On my recent post: Protests in Michigan Could Have Erupted in Gun Violence ‎Frequent commenter Gary Tulie writes from his home near London:

Surely even in states where open carry is permitted, using firearms to threaten and intimidate the elected assembly has got to be illegal. I would have thought it could be considered a terrorist act, and quite possibly treason. I can’t understand how a president can condone these actions the condoning of which could be seen as supporting terrorism and treason. One step away from Kristallnacht maybe?

I understand your astonishment, and I commend you on your understanding of the U.S. system as the assault on it that Trump represents.

As I mentioned in my piece, it was very clearly a crime, though not treason “the crime of betraying one’s country, especially by attempting to kill the sovereign or overthrow the government.” In any case, it should have resulted in arrests made and charges brought.

But it didn’t. That’s what we call in the United States “white privilege.” If a group of men from another race had done this, they would have gotten their brains knocked out, or perhaps shot down like so many rabid dogs.  This is a clear violation of our 14th Amendment which guarantees all citizens “equal protection under the law.” We’re really not making any progress toward that ideal whatsoever.

And as you pointed out, we now have an even bigger problem: our president encourages massive numbers of armed people to commit these crimes on a daily basis.  Moreover, there is every reason to believe this is just starting to heat up, as there are so many forces militating toward it:

• The president continues to light fires under it.

• Law enforcement turns a blind eye toward it, and the crime goes unpunished.

• As time passes, frustration with the lock-down grows, especially among uneducated white people.

• Social media becomes more dense with false stories to the effect that the pandemic is a hoax, a revocation of basic freedoms, even that this is an attempt at world control.

• Some states (whose governors are morons) are opening commerce (to the utter horror of health experts).

• It will take 14 days to observe a resultant spike in COVID-19 cases, during which these acts of terrorism can burst into flames all over the country.

You mention Kristallnacht.  We don’t have a small community of potential scapegoats whose windows we can break.  What we do have, on the other hand, is a president who routinely encourages his base to commit aggravated assault against his critics; he’s been doing this since before he came to office.  Perhaps he’s looking ahead a bit and thinking that this is the type of insurrection he’s going to need on November 4 (the day after the election), so this may be a good time for a dry run. What’s going to happen when he loses is going to be hard to imagine.

In the meanwhile, back to today.  There are those who say that everything Trump touches turns to (feces).  This seems to be simply another example of that.

Wish us luck.