MOBOCRACY I: Trump's Vocabulary of Violence

“We can’t continue like this.” – Gov. Josh Shapiro

It’s time to resurrect a word that Lincoln created to describe the 1840s and ‘50s – “Mobocracy” – which was his description of lawless Americans who were normalizing mob justice over the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Most prominent were the 1857 canning of abolitionist Charles Sumner on the Senate floor, the sacking of Elijah Lovejoy’s printing presses and subsequent lynching and, of course, daily assaults on and killings of Blacks throughout the South. Lincoln worried that its spread could reach what we now refer to as a tipping point that, in Shakespeare’s arresting phrase, “grew by what it fed on.”

The 2020s are not destined to end in a 21st Century Civil War. But they could, according to the 33 percent of Republican voters in a poll who said they were willing to resort to violence to get their way politically.

This is now the party of Donald Trump who has a long history of menacing acts and words:

*The first time the name Trump appeared in The New York Times was when his father Fred Trump was arrested at a Klan rally in NYC in 1927.

*After the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, he said, “It was vicious, horrible but they put it down with strength – that shows you the power of strength.”

*Trump openly speculated that his more extreme anti-Hillary followers might resort to “their 2d amendment rights.”

*Candidate Trump told his rallies in 2016 “knock the crap out of them [protestors], would ya?” and bragged that he’d pay any legal fees for those who did so; and he also enthusiastically told crowds that “I have the support of the police, the military and Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people who don’t play it tough unless they get to a certain point and then it would be very very bad.”

*David Duke endorsed Trump in 2016 and held a rally the day after the November election to celebrate the victory.

*When White Nationalists carried swastika signs and chanted “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville in 2017, he famously talked about the “very fine people, on both sides.”

*At rallies in his presidential campaigns, he would usually at some point pivot to shout expletives at journalists and cameras on risers, invariably triggering audience members to in turn curse and menace them.

*After prodding a MAGA mob on Jan. 6 to march to the Capitol to stop the electoral count, a chant went up among some rioters to “Hang Mike Pence”; when later asked about it, Trump’s short response was: “Well, they were angry”...and of course he later pardoned hundreds of violent felons from that day, with no particularized reasons given. (Lesson learned by future potential militants.)

*When local ultra-right militia attempted to kidnap and kill Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer and an arsonist tried to burn down Maryland governor’s Josh Shapoiro home during Passover, Trump never called either ranking official to express his non-partisan concern, as any Democratic President surely would have done.

*He repeatedly named and denounced judges presiding in cases where he was a defendant – prosecutors too (Jack Smith a “deranged thug”) – which then invariably spurred scores or hundreds of death threats. Judge Lewis Kaplan told jurors who sat in the successful E. Jean Carroll defamation case, “”If I were you, I wouldn’t tell anyone that I was on this jury.”

*His ICE agents are currently seizing immigrants and deporting them to foreign prisons without any due process hearing.

No one should therefore act surprised when former FBI Director Chris Wray testified that three-fourths of all political violence came from far-right /far-white groups that comprise the core of the #47 cult. Sen. Romney told his biographer that GOP colleagues privately admitted they were afraid to vote to convict Trump on impeachment counts for fear of physical retaliation against them or their families. Earlier this month, Sen. Lisa Murkowski confirmed, “We are all afraid.”

It’s hard to conjure up a worse political menace than a natural bully combined with the leverage a $29 trillion GDP, $7 trillion federal budget, control of criminal law enforcement and regulatory agencies, Commander-in-Chief of the military, and the author of a record number of Executive Orders against his perceived political enemies. Little wonder then that targeted law firms, companies, prosecutors, judges, Members of Congress, media owners, journalists and immigrants are frightened (as are the leaders of Canada, Panama, Greenland and NATO).

That’s not so much a discreet Enemies List as a constant warning to upwards of half of Americans. It’s the secret sauce that leads to “anticipatory genuflection,” as I called it in a 2017 article.

In the view of Professor Tim Snyder, should another Oklahoma City bombing occur, there’s little doubt that TeamTrump would quickly exploit it as a Reichstag Fire to justify yet more oppression…unless Democrats are immediately ready to blame Donald-the-Menace for lighting the fuse. And it’s likely that, in the next 45 months, Messrs Trump, Bondi. Patel, Hegseth will hyperbolize some local crime into a “national emergency” under federal Insurrection Laws and call out federal troops. (Nor will it take some heinous event to get anti-terrorism juices flowing – see Bondi’s weird ardor on Fox segments for vilifying people who damage Teslas as if they were threatening WW III.)

Everyone is familiar with the axiom from The Prince that “it’s better to be feared than loved”...which Trump has cheerfully embraced not as a bug but a feature of his business model. Notably, he admitted to Bob Woodward that “real power is – I don’t even want to use the word – fear.’”

Criminologists call this “Stochastic Terror” to describe when a powerful person relentlessly denigrates a group knowing – or hoping – will trigger violence by a well-armed follower against one or several of them. A USA TODAY survey found more than 500 instances when Trump at rallies used words like “invasion …predator,...killer…criminals,...animals” against immigrants – and then fanatical adherents quoting him did indeed engage in several mass murders in El Paso, Pittsburgh and Buffalo.

“Rhetoric like this has consequences,” said Timothy J. Heaphy, a top staffer at the House January 6 Committee. “Politicians think it’s just rhetoric but people take it seriously.” Based on years running the FBI’s counter- intelligence program, Frank Figliuzzi agrees. “Trump’s violence may lead to violence because his rants at rallies embolden white hate groups and racist blogs.”

Defensive Trumpers – aware they’re vulnerable to looking like Stasi members – try to preempt criticism by pretending that Democrats are the party in effect directing real-life Purge movies. Recall the outrage last year at how “they” tried to kill Trump (Bernie? Jamie? Cory? – nope, that lone shooter was a Republican who hated liberals) and some arsonists protesting in Portland after the George Floyd murder, as if they were the equivalent of an attempt to overturn a presidential election.

As Trump regularly scowls and sits behind his desk signing illegal orders to seek revenge, he gives off the vibe of a well-coiffed John Gotti, sitting in his Queens social club barking orders to consiglieres. “Mafia Don” indeed.

Is that an unfair comparison? Perhaps…to mobsters who certainly kill more people in cold blood, although #45’s incompetence caused over 300,000 needless deaths according to his Covid czar and he’s morally responsible for millions of deaths – albeit a “silent violence” – like unvaccinated children and untreated AIDS patients due to his decimation of USAID. If not exactly organized crime, a Trump administration is the embodiment of disorganized crime.

Trump is unique. American presidents have previously been victims of violence but never before its instigators.`