Destroying Civility and Promoting Violence in our Public Life
Joe Biden (“Sleepy-creepy Joe”), Nikki Haley (“Birdbrain”), Ted Cruz (“Lyin’ Ted”), Hillary Clinton (“Crooked Hillary”), Ron De Santis (“Ron DeSanctimonious,”), Barack Obama (“Cheatin’ Obama”), Adam Schuff (“little Adam Schitt”), Marco Rubio (“Little Marco”), Bernie Sanders (“Crazy Bernie”), Jeff Flake (“Jeff Flakey”), Al Franken (“Al Frankenstein”) , Joe Scarborough (“Psycho Joe”), Mika Brzezinska (“Dumb as a Rock Mika”), Nancy Pelosi (“Nasty Nancy”), Megyn Kelly (“Crazy Megyn”), Elizabeth Warren (“Pocahontas”), Gavin Newsom (“Gavin New-scum”) . . . . The list grows daily.
In the years since he began his campaign for the presidency in 2015, Donald Trump’s rhetoric has increasingly moved from insults to explicit threats of violence, a pattern that has been described in detail by media sources.
“Crooked Joe Biden, let’s indict the motherf--ker! Let’s indict him! . . . We’ll stand up to crazy Nancy Pelosi, who ruined San Francisco – (pause) – How’s her husband doing, anybody know?” (Laughter from delegates to the 2023 California Republican Party Convention.) The “joke” referred to Pelosi’s husband, Paul, who was nearly murdered by David DePape, a hammer-wielding pro-Trump fanatic who repeatedly told police detectives that he wanted to make Nancy Pelosi pay for Democrats’ persecution of Donald Trump and because “they were finally able to steal the election.”
“[Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley] was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States, Trump posted on “Truth Social.” “This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”
Fact check: When US intelligence reported that Chinese officials feared an attack by the US Milley called his Chinese counterpart, General Li Zuocheng, to de-escalate the growing tensions. Chief of staff Mark Meadows, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller approved the call
On March 24th, former President Trump posted a tweet calling Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg a “degenerate psychopath that truly hates America,” and then a photo. When there were complaints, he claimed that, after he added this tweet to his Truth Social account, someone else overlaid it with a picture of District Attorney Bragg, a claim easily documented as untrue.
The danger of his language can most clearly be seen as he reacts to the growing list of his indictments. Over the last fifteen months alone, Donald Trump has insulted and verbally abused—and in some cases threatened—prosecutors, judges, their family members and court officials by name 138 times.
As Trump began escalating his attacks on anyone who questioned his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, the effects were clear.
One in six election workers received threats after the 2020 election, some simply bullying, others threatening death or physical attacks. The number of serious threats against federal judges and prosecutors has exploded: from less than 70 criminal investigations in 2019 to 457 in 2023, according to the Justice Department. At least half of trial judges handling cases arising from the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol have received threats and harassment, including death threats, according to the US Marshalls Service. Two judges trying cases involving former President Trump have been placed under 24-hour protection because of repeated death threats and 70 per cent of the federal judges have been provided with electronic security system to detect home intrusions amid what the head of the U.S. Marshall Services recently described as an ”alarming” increase in threats against members of the federal judiciary.
At the same time, our reaction to his increasingly violent language (“bloodbath” “bedlam” “blood in the streets” ) and escalating threats has declined. Psychologists call it “habituation” a process in which, through repetition, words and acts that would have horrified us in the past come to be accepted.
On one level, Trump’s vulgarities and juvenile nicknames can be dismissed as the insults of a fourth-grade playground bully. Or “Just Trump being Trump.” But we know from numerous studies that repetition leads to “habituation,” a state of numbed acceptance. And we also know from history that dehumanizing language and calls for violence against perceived “enemies” is always the first stage of violent acts.