{"id":34944,"date":"2024-07-19T11:49:10","date_gmt":"2024-07-19T18:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=34944"},"modified":"2024-07-19T11:49:11","modified_gmt":"2024-07-19T18:49:11","slug":"the-party-that-embraces-political-violence-is-now-reaping-what-it-sowed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/07\/19\/the-party-that-embraces-political-violence-is-now-reaping-what-it-sowed\/","title":{"rendered":"THE PARTY THAT EMBRACES POLITICAL VIOLENCE IS NOW REAPING WHAT IT SOWED"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

THU, 7\/18\/2024 – BY\u00a0CARL GIBSON<\/a> (Occupy.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Apolitical party trafficking in political violence shouldn\u2019t be surprised when it blows back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be clear, it should go without saying that political differences should be solved with ballots, not bullets. And that political violence, no matter the target, will only lead to more violence. It\u2019s good that former President Donald Trump survived Saturday\u2019s assassination attempt at his Pennsylvania rally, and the family of former volunteer fire chief Corey Comperatore \u2014 who was killed by one of the shooter\u2019s bullets after using his body to shield his wife and daughter<\/a> \u2014 deserves compassion and condolences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, it\u2019s critical to understand that the tragic event in Butler, Pennsylvania is an effect of the root cause: Republicans\u2019 consistent embrace of political violence since Trump rose to power.  The attempt on Trump\u2019s life is the direct result of the Republican Party\u2019s decision to exploit violence for political gain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

VIOLENCE IS TRUMP AND THE GOP\u2019S MODUS OPERANDI<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In 2012, Florida man George Zimmerman shot and killed 17 year-old Trayvon Martin, who was on his way home from buying Skittles at a convenience store. The killing of Martin and the acquittal of Zimmerman, who claimed self-defense, is what initially gave birth to the Black Lives Matter movement. In 2016, Zimmerman auctioned off the Kel-Tec PF-9 gun he used to kill Martin<\/a> for at least $100,000, saying the proceeds would go toward stopping \u201c[2016 Democratic presidential nominee] Hillary Clinton\u2019s anti-firearm rhetoric.\u201d He now autographs Confederate flags and bags of Skittles<\/a> for fans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before Donald Trump even entered politics, he exhibited bloodlust in his hometown of New York by accusing five innocent men of sexually assaulting a woman in Central Park in 1989 \u2014 something he still refuses to apologize for<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want to hate these murderers and I always will,\u201d Trump wrote in the ad, which was headlined: \u201cBRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY AND BRING BACK OUR POLICE!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am not looking to psychoanalyze or understand them, I am looking to punish them,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2016, as the Republican presidential nominee, Trump suggested \u201cSecond Amendment people<\/a>\u201d could take matters into their own hands to prevent Clinton from appointing federal judges (the Second Amendment of the Constitution is the right to keep and bear arms). This was just the latest iteration of a pattern of violence in Trump\u2019s rally speeches: He also encouraged his supporters to \u201cknock the crap out of<\/a>\u201d anyone carrying a tomato, after a tomato-thrower in Iowa missed him. And later, he pledged to pay the legal bills<\/a> of anyone who assaulted protesters at his rallies (before eventually walking it back<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s lust for violence continued into his presidency. In 2017, he urged police to not \u201cbe too nice\u201d<\/a> when apprehending suspects, and instead encouraged them to be \u201crough.\u201d Roughly a month later, a neo-Nazi drove a car into a crowd of protesters, killing one and injuring 35 others after a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Trump refused outright condemnation and instead insisted there were \u201cvery fine people on both sides<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018, after Trump’s constant attacks on the media (repeatedly assailing them as \u201cthe true enemy of the people<\/a>\u201d), Trump supporter Cesar Sayoc mailed pipe bombs to several prominent media outlets and high-profile Democrats. Defense lawyers said Sayoc was a Trump \u201csuper fan\u201d who viewed Trump as a \u201csurrogate father,\u201d<\/a> and lived in an \u201calternate reality\u201d thanks to Trump’s caustic rhetoric about his political enemies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, Trump called protesters in Minneapolis \u201cthugs,\u201d and ominously tweeted<\/a>: \u201cWhen the looting starts, the shooting starts\u201d (Twitter flagged that post for \u201cglorifying violence\u201d almost immediately). That summer, Trump asked then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper about whether he could order the military to open fire on protesters<\/a> in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCan\u2019t you just shoot them?\u201d Trump asked. \u201cJust shoot them in the legs or something?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That same year, more than a dozen men were arrested as part of a plot to kidnap Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer<\/a>. Six arrestees were part of a far-right paramilitary militia group called the Wolverine Watchmen. Nine of the 14 arrested were eventually found guilty, some after accepting plea deals, and others after being convicted by a jury. The plot was hatched in response to Whitmer\u2019s lockdown of the state due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Two weeks after Trump tweeted \u201cLIBERATE MICHIGAN,\u201d<\/a> armed protesters entered the Michigan State Capitol building. Two of those protesters were later implicated in the kidnapping plot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Months later, 17 year-old Kyle Rittenhouse opened fire on the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin with an AR-15 style rifle, killing local residents Joseph Rosenbaum and Gaige Grosskreutz, claiming self-defense. After Rittenhouse was acquitted, he became a folk hero<\/a> of the far right. In May, he spoke to a large crowd of supporters<\/a> at the Texas Republican Party Convention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And of course, Trump\u2019s embrace of political violence hit a new low on January 6, 2021. During a speech to his supporters, the lame-duck president encouraged them<\/a> to \u201cgo to the Capitol\u201d and \u201cfight like hell\u201d or else they\u2019re \u201cnot going to have a country anymore.\u201d Hours later, Trump supporters \u2014 who built a gallows outside of the Capitol \u2014 were roaming the halls of Congress and chanting \u201chang Mike Pence.\u201d At the time, Trump tweeted<\/a> that Pence \u201cdidn\u2019t have the courage to do what should have been done,\u201d regarding his hopes that Pence would refuse to allow the certification of the 2020 Electoral College vote count in Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even as a private citizen, the former president didn\u2019t relent in his calls for and celebration of political violence. After Rep. Nancy Pelosi\u2019s (D-California) husband, Paul, was the victim of a grisly hammer attack by a home invader in 2022, Trump joked about it<\/a> in a 2023 speech to supporters in California. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll stand up to crazy Nancy Pelosi, who ruined San Francisco \u2014 how\u2019s her husband doing, anybody know?\u201d Trump said at the 2023 California Republican Convention. \u201cAnd she\u2019s against building a wall at our border, even though she has a wall around her house \u2014 which obviously didn\u2019t do a very good job.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also in 2023, Trump wrote on social media that Gen. Mark Milley, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the last half of his presidency, should have been executed for treason<\/a>. That comment came after a report that Milley called his Chinese counterpart<\/a>, Li Zuocheng, to assure him of the US\u2019 stability despite Trump\u2019s attempts to overturn the 2020 election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH,\u201d Trump wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During Trump\u2019s first official rally of his third campaign for the presidency in Waco, Texas last year, he declared to the crowd: \u201cI am your retribution<\/a>.\u201d He also declared in subsequent campaign speeches that his political opponents on the left were \u201cvermin<\/a>,\u201d and that immigrants \u2014 specifically those from Africa and Asia \u2014 were \u201cpoisoning the blood of our country.\u201d NBC pointed out that his \u201cblood poisoning\u201d remark was almost a verbatim quote<\/a> from Adolf Hitler\u2019s manifesto. And in March, he suggested that there would be a \u201cbloodbath<\/a>\u201d if he lost the 2024 election. He even posted a video to his Truth Social account<\/a> of a truck bearing Trump flags that had a sticker on its bed made to look as if President Joe Biden was bound and gagged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis image from Donald Trump is the type of crap you post when you\u2019re calling for a bloodbath or when you tell the Proud Boys to \u2018stand back and stand by,\u2019\u201d Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler said, referencing a far-right gang that was present during the 2021 attack on the Capitol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTrump is regularly inciting political violence and it\u2019s time people take him seriously \u2013 just ask the Capitol police officers who were attacked protecting our democracy on January 6,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite his claims of being pro-law enforcement, Trump has also indirectly celebrated attacks on U.S. Capitol Police Department officers by promising to pardon January 6 insurrectionists<\/a> currently serving time for assaulting police officers. The former president has repeatedly been in contact with Micki Witthoeft<\/a>, whose daughter, Ashli Babbitt, broke past several police lines and was fatally shot after attempting to jump through a window at lawmakers sheltering in place just feet away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In March, the Washington Post reported that Trump called Witthoeft<\/a> to discuss \u201csetting these guys free when he gets in,\u201d and to pass along the message to jailed January 6 rioters \u201cthat they\u2019re on his mind, and when he gets in they\u2019ll get out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

REPUBLICANS ENCOURAGE A SELF-DESTRUCTIVE CYCLE OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As New York magazine columnist Jonathan Chait recently wrote<\/a>, Trump surviving his assassination attempt on Saturday was fortunate both for him and for the movement to stop him. He argued that the United States\u2019 reliance on democracy and the rule of law is what separates it from other countries that are plagued by \u201cendemic political violence, corruption, coups, [and] authoritarianism,\u201d and that \u201cmaintaining the expectations of social peace and the rule of law is one of the most important tasks in American politics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPolitical violence is a tool favored by radical causes. Assassination attempts of authoritarian figures, successful or unsuccessful, generally do not prevent authoritarianism. They enable it,\u201d he wrote. \u201cEven by the coldest calculation, murdering Trump would not protect American democracy, because the threat of right-wing authoritarianism would not die with him. Had he been killed, his martyrdom would have only fueled his movement\u2019s will to power.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chait\u2019s point is correct in that the far-right MAGA movement will outlive the 78 year-old Trump. There are already numerous powerful figures in the United States who have indicated a willingness to use violence to accomplish their political objectives. North Carolina Republican Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson \u2014 who is the GOP\u2019s 2024 nominee for governor in the Tar Heel State \u2014 recently said during a campaign speech that \u201csome folks need killing<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even behind-the-scenes figures in the GOP have shown a thirst for political violence. During a July interview<\/a>, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts \u2014 one of the chief architects of the far-right authoritarian Project 2025<\/a> playbook \u2014 boasted that his side is currently \u201cin the process of taking this country back.\u201d He also notably suggested that dissenters could be met with violence in a second Trump term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI come full circle on this response and just want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The attempted shooting of Trump should be viewed in the broader context of America\u2019s epidemic of public mass shootings, in particular those carried out by gunmen with a political agenda:<\/p>\n\n\n\n