Political Violence is the Extreme Right’s Strategy to Get Their Way*
Can’t They Win without It?
Since yesterday’s shooting, people on the right have projected their violent political rhetoric onto President Biden and Democrats as the cause of this 20-year-old-registered-Republican-lone-wolf ’s attempted assassination of Mr. Trump with an AR-15 style killing machine.
Beyond farcical.
More important than the right to life, god’s given rights under the Second Amendment seemingly extend to the murder of school children, Blacks, Latinos, Jews, members of the LGTBQ community, people from “shithole countries,” and those who are “poisoning the blood” of “true” Americans. The principal instigator of such hateful violence and his enablers were no doubt incredulous that it was turned against him. Maybe the Secret Service needed some elementary school teachers to protect the candidate from the consequences of his own hate-filled bombast.
Beyond farcical.
Political violence is anathema to self-government. A key component of liberal democracy, which the chief rhetorical instigator and his enablers have abandoned, is to resolve political differences at the ballot box with peaceful transfers of power. Unfortunately, elected officials on the right have undermined attempts to reduce such violence by attacking the rule of law and, with a wink and a nod or two thumbs up, giving the growing number of “stand back and stand by” domestic violent extremists the green light to carry out their express or implicit “orders.” How many Jan. 6 defendants said they were simply “following presidential orders” by breaking into the Capitol and threatening its occupants. Officials on the right are all too willing to exploit for political gain the extremism they encourage.
I’m reminded of Body Armor Mo Brooks (R-Ala) speaking before the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol: “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass,” telling the crowd, “our ancestors sacrificed their blood, their sweat, their tears, their fortunes and sometimes their lives. Are you willing to do the same?” That was, of course, shortly before Josh Hawley fist pumped in solidarity with gathering rioters demanding the election be overturned. A Threat We Cannot Ignore.
Near the end of Trump’s presidency, ABC News identified 54 cases of Trump-inspired violence. ‘No Blame?’ ABC News finds 54 cases invoking ‘Trump’ in connection with violence, threats, alleged assaults. Several involved mass shootings of people who are “poisoning the blood” of “true” Americans. Trump’s own defense secretary “saw an evolution in then-President Donald Trump after he wasn’t removed from office after being impeached, and that Trump wanted to use the military to shoot protesters demonstrating in the wake of George Floyd’s death.” Trump’s defense secretary ‘dumbfounded’ by suggestion to shoot protesters.
Trump, you may recall, chose to hold his first campaign rally for 2024 in Waco, Texas, during the 30-year anniversary of the federal raid of the nearby Branch Davidian Compound. At the end of the 51-day siege, the compound exploded and burned to the ground, killing more than 70 Branch Davidians. See The Waco tragedy, explained in Vox.
“Waco fueled the rise of the militia movement in the 1990s and inspired the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995; it continues to influence contemporary militant thinking. All of this should be borne in mind when Donald Trump holds the first official rally of his 2024 presidential campaign in Waco . . . .” See Mike Giglio’s outstanding What it Means for Trump’s Campaign to Start in Waco in The Intercept.
Trump’s speech at the Waco Rally “was a familiar festival of grievances . . . .” Trump proclaimed, “In 2016, I declared, ‘I am your voice.’ Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.” The Waco tragedy, explained in Vox.
At CPAC after he announced his candidacy, Trump ominously declared, “2024 is the final battle. It’s going to be the big one.” The apocalyptic symbolism from Book of Revelations 19:11–21 isn’t subtle (although I’d wager he didn’t come up with that on his own). Trump also vowed to “defeat the demonic forces.” His outreach was clear. “Trump has been signaling that this campaign will be different from his last two: more divisive and violent in its rhetoric, more revolutionary in its aims, and more openly intertwined with right-wing militancy and its apocalyptic mindset.” What it Means for Trump’s Campaign to Start in Waco.
Fast forward to earlier this year. You may remember, Trump posted on Truth Social a video of a vehicle driving in Long Island, New York. The Trump themed pickup with streaming American and Trump flags depicted a graphic across the tailgate showing President Biden lying on his side, arms and legs bound with rope. (I choose not to repost that graphic here.)
I wonder what Trump meant by that.
If Trump loses again, who thinks he and his following will accept the outcome and peacefully retreat? The threat of political violence and physical harm is an integral component of Project 25’s anticipated success, especially if the left doesn’t capitulate. From last week’s post quoting Rachel Maddow from Ultra Season 2, July 1 Bonus Episode:
“The anti-democratic right in this country, this year in 2024, is not running against the Democratic Party. They are running against the Democratic process.”
“And the people who participate in this process, who make this process work in this country, are human beings who need protection. We need to protect the press. We need to protect the judiciary and the court system. We need to protect the electoral process and all of the people who administer it in ways large and small. We need to protect opposition politicians. And we also need to protect the people who are being scapegoated and who are the subject of corrosive conspiracy theories. Not only because we owe it to them as humans, but because corrosive conspiracy theories corrode democracy. They make you willing to give it up.”
Why do they need protection? And from what and whom?
Among the best explanations I have seen of the combined influences from the right that lead to lone wolf domestic terror was Cesar Sayoc’s sentencing memorandum. You may remember him. Sayoc sent 16 bombs to people Trump had publicly declared were enemies of the United States. Sayoc pleaded guilty to 65 counts for federal crimes which included using a weapon of mass destruction, interstate transportation of an explosive, making threatening interstate communications, illegally mailing explosives, and using an explosive to commit a felony. The judge gave him 20 years.
Sayoc’s sentencing memorandum echoed loudly in similar filings and arguments for Jan. 6 convicts who hoped to mitigate their violence in the judge’s eyes. It is a fascinating piece of legal work, giving insight into Trump’s followers and how politicians and their propaganda machines use and exploit cult members to threaten and carry out violence while maintaining deniability.
“Mr. Sayoc began watching Fox News religiously and following Trump supporters on social media. He became a vocal political participant on Facebook, something he had not done previously. He was not discerning of the pro-Trump information he received, and by the time of his arrest, he was ‘connected’ to hundreds of right-wing Facebook groups. Many of these groups promoted various conspiracy theories and, more generally, the idea that Trump’s critics were dangerous, unpatriotic, and evil. . . . They deployed provocative language to depict Democrats as murderous, terroristic, and violent. Fox News furthered these arguments. For example, just days before Mr. Sayoc mailed his packages, Sean Hannity said on his program that a large ‘number of Democratic leaders [were] encouraging mob violence against their political opponents.’
“Mr. Sayoc was also an avid follower of @RealDonaldTrump, Donald Trump’s Twitter page, where Trump posted prolifically about his political enemies, including all of the recipients of Mr. Sayoc’s mailings. In his tweets, Trump portrayed these individuals as dangerous, corrupt, and un-American. For example, he suggested that anti-Trump protestors were paid agents of billionaire George Soros and that Hillary Clinton should be prosecuted for corruption and put in jail.
“Mr. Sayoc was particularly susceptible to believing these dubious stories of Democratic malfeasance. The combination of his cognitive deficiencies, steroid-induced delusional thinking, political naiveté, and his isolation resulted in Mr. Sayoc being unable to critically evaluate these claims. He lived alone in a claustrophobic van, did not have close relationships with his remaining family members, and did not have friends or loved ones to help puncture his alternative reality. He truly believed wild conspiracy theories he read on the internet, many of which vilified Democrats and spread rumors that Trump supporters were in danger because of them. He heard it from the President of the United States, a man with whom he felt he had a deep personal connection. He read it on almost every website he visited. He saw it on Fox News, which he watched at the start and end of his day. And it was reinforced to him on social media.
“In this bubble, Mr. Sayoc personalized the misinformation to which he was exposed. He began to consider Democrats as not just dangerous in theory, but imminently and seriously dangerous to his personal safety. President Trump did nothing to dissuade this message. In the lead up to the 2018 mid-term elections, President Trump warned his supporters that they were in danger from Democrats, and at times condoned violence against his critics and ‘enemies.’ They deployed provocative language to depict Democrats as murderous, terroristic, and violent.
“A rational observer may have brushed off Trump’s tweets as hyperbole, but Mr. Sayoc took them to heart. . . .
“The world of conspiracy and danger blurred with Mr. Sayoc’s real life, and he believed liberals, under the direction of Democratic leaders, sought to harm and kill him because of his support for Donald Trump. Mr. Sayoc’s political obsessions became increasingly debilitating, to the point that he could think of little else. . . .
“A few weeks before the November 2018 mid-term elections, Mr. Sayoc’s obsession with the Democratic leadership boiled over and he made the biggest mistake of his life. As the President ramped up his rhetoric predicting anarchy if the Democrats won the election, and Mr. Sayoc perseverated on the belief that an organized Democratic effort was to blame for the abuse he suffered . . ., he committed these offenses.
“In the fall of 2018, the ‘slow boil’ of Mr. Sayoc’s political obsessions and delusional beliefs manifested in his construction and sending of 16 packages to prominent Democratic figures. These packages included devices designed to look like pipe bombs. . . . [H]is obsessions became ‘increasingly severe, to the point that he could think of little else’ and he ‘resolved that he needed to do something to scare or deter the prominent figures in the media and on the left.’. . .
“Mr. Sayoc targeted people he believed to be the enemies of President Trump and who he perceived as presenting a danger to the country. Ironically, he somehow thought that he was helping the country or defending it (and himself) from people who were working to do harm.”
I watched interviews of people who attended last night’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. They were incapable of recognizing that their “inspired” leader has been spewing, threatening, and promising violence, including the political kind, in word and deed, since he descended the escalator in 2015. He has turned up the heat to boiling since then.
R.VanWagoner https://medium.com/@richardvanwagoner publishes. https://richardvanwagoner.medium.com/subscribe
*My brother the very talented fiction writer and novelist, Robert Hodgson Van Wagoner, deserves considerable credit for offering both substantive and technical suggestions to https://medium.com/@richardvanwagoner. Rob’s second novel is a beautifully written suspense drama that takes place in Utah, Wyoming, and Norway. This novel, The Contortionists, which Rob himself narrates for the audio version, is a psychological page-turner about a missing child in a predominantly Mormon community. I have read the novel and listened to the audio version twice. It is a literary masterpiece. The Contortionists is not, however, for the faint of heart.