Why Do We Insist on Being Hijacked By Trump and MAGA's Violence?
Trump just praised a violent rallygoer who attempted to inflict violence on the press. Earlier this week, his team pushed aside an Arlington Cemetary official who protested his photo-op. Enough.
For over two years, I have been a broken record warning about Trump and MAGA’s rising stochastic terrorism.
It’s a wonky, academic word which basically translates to political violence against individuals and groups that is instigated by public rhetoric and media coverage. Just for my amusement I went over to Twitter and did a search of “Wajahat Ali + Stochastic Terrorism.” Unfortunately, I had to keep scrolling because there were too many posts of me sharing Trump and his cult threatening his critics, which included the press, judges, poll workers, public officials, LGBTQ+, teachers, and doctors.
Stochastic terrorism, that awkward but accurate word, popped up again in my broken record of a brain last night after I saw yet another chilling video of a violent MAGA cult member. During Trump’s Pennsylvania rally, a Trump fan “stormed into the press area” right after Trump criticized media outlets for negative coverage. Thankfully, he was subdued before he could inflict any harm. One would assume a sane adult would condemn the unhinged individual, but we are talking about Donald Trump here. From the stage, Trump defended the man and said, “That’s okay,” and furthermore added, “that’s beautiful” and “he’s on our side.”
For the past 9 years, MAGA has been synonymous with conspiracy theories, lies, hate, cruelty, and a failed violent insurrection. This is nothing new. Trump has always incited his cult towards rage and violence against his enemies. Recall Trump told his rally goers to “knock the crap” out of protestors in 2016 and promised to pay their legal fees. Since then, he has referred to any media that is unfavorable towards him as “fake news” and “enemy of the people,” a description he borrowed from Stalin. In 2018, another Trump fan and right-wing news addict, Cesar Sayoc, sent functional pipe bombs to prominent Trump critics, including Democrats and CNN journalists.
One would assume corporate media would use all of their power, resources and privileges to warn Americans about the very real threat of Trump and MAGA but we’ve discovered most of them are masochists willing to bend the knee and engage in “both sides” reporting for sake of access, ratings, and money. I’ve shared a dark joke over the years that if Trump gains ultimate power he will build camps for his critics. Muslims, immigrants, Black people, Mike Pence, windmills and journalists will all be there. While the rest of us try to engineer our great escape, corporate media journalists will be sticking their mics out of the fence and asking the guards for a scoop. The MAGA guard will turn around and say, “Uh, we’re killing you all tomorrow,” to which the journalist will respond, “Great! Can I have the exclusive?”
Dark humor for dark times.
But Trump’s embrace of ultraviolence isn’t relegated to just his critics. On this front, he is magnanimous and willing to spread love. Earlier this week, it was reported Trump possibly violated federal law by shamefully doing a photo op at Arlington Cemetery which is the final resting place of our soldiers. When a cemetery official objected, she was allegedly pushed aside by Trump’s staff. A military official later said that she declined to press charges because she was afraid of retaliation against Trump supporters.
Sit with that for a moment.
The entire country is hijacked by a violent, extremist minority that has been enacting their cult leader’s temper tantrum for the past decade. Why do we keep putting up with this? Why do all of our institutions enable it? Where the hell is the Department of Justice?
What would happen if it was a bunch of brown, Black or Muslim Democratic voters who kept threatening Americans, especially public officials, law enforcement, and corporate media? There would be chalk lines of our bodies.
Hell, what would happen if Kamala Harris said, “That’s beautiful” after seeing an unhinged Democratic voter attempting to assault a press member? The national outrage and press coverage would make Obama’s tan suit look like Hillary Clinton’s emails.
The double standard in covering Trump and MAGA’s violent rhetoric and the incessant coddling of his base as individuals merely suffering from “economic anxiety” has helped elevate and normalize daily threats against our institutions and innocent people like poll workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.
I, for one, refused to be hijacked by a weird, unhinged, and dangerous minority that would rather burn the country down than move forward with the rest of us towards a multicultural future.
Because close to half, if not fully half of this Country, is inhabited by Adult American Citizens who are enamored of "Christian" White-Nationalist Fascism. As outlined in Project 2025. And they hate democracy. I mean Hate democracy. Because democracy means their eventual loss of political power, even at the State and local level. And they know it. They've seen the writing on the wall. And the only way they know to remain in power is to subvert the results of free and fair small "d" democratic elections, by cheating and changing the rules. In my opinion, that is the short, and unpleasant reality that answers your question and the very real threat that all Constitution-loving citizens face.
The normalization of Trump’s behavior has at least four elements. First, he may be a loon, but he is a rich, white, male Republican loon. Second. I fear we no longer give kids a sense of the perils of authoritarianism. The relatives and friends who remembered the Holocaust or Stalinism are fast dying out. Even thinking about our troops no longer is as vivid in people’s thoughts. I remember wearing a POW bracelet in school. That made me think of Vietnam on a regular basis. The protests at the universities occurred when I was a child in NY. They made an impact too. But the students weren’t protesting just the treatment of civilians, they were concerned about the draft, and about the deaths of young soldiers. (Not that old soldiers do not deserve equal worry.)
Third, there is a sense in the country that it will blow over if you ignore it. Trump is just a thug with lots of thugs around him. Sadly Hitler was only a thug with his rough and uncouth savage brown shirts around him. Like Trump, he disposed of followers who were no longer of use. He killed his officers in the Night of the Ling Knives. So when Trump is talking about retribution we should be very concerned. Even if he only means imprisonment. His thugs, of course, may decide more is indicated. How much will Vance think his ruffled feathers are worth? If you read The Rise of the Third Reich, you will find remarkable parallels between the Nazis and MAGA. I am not catastrophizing. Look for yourselves. Remember that the best way for an authoritarian to stay in power is to kill all their enemies. Second best is to kill or imprison a random selection (see Stalin and the Great Terror), and put the fear of God in everyone else. Russian citizens turned one another in at an astonishing rate because they thought they could earn Brownie points that way. They were wrong. Or you could starve millions as Stalin did to the Ukrainians in the Xolodomer.
Have you noticed how Trump’s minions, including LaCivita, have all become openly aggressive? They were both physically and verbally confrontational at Arlington. And there was a lot of that about in DC during Trump’s photo op amid a Black Lives Matter protest. It doesn’t change. It gets worse. Sad thing is that it works. The Arlington worker should and could have pressed charges, but WAS AFRAID to do so. Why are we not supporting these people? We should have their backs when they do the right thing.
The last major piece is the media’s overt, stupid or inadvertent support for Trump. The call of the dollar is behind most of it. You need ratings. But I fail to see what “the balance approach” does as it is neither exciting nor elucidating.
I have lots of ideas for the long term, but for now Trump must be held accountable for everything, and we should guard his accusers from harm. The media must be shamed. And we must stop watching because viewers mean money. Problem is that some media outlet owners don’t need the money. They would prefer to mandate their preferred vision. Things are tough, but underscoring Kamala’s joy and the egregious rhetoric of Trance and Vump might help. A lot of people are sickened by what they say.