"Consider: Over the last several days, Donald Trump has called for the execution of one of the nation’s top generals, threatened prosecutors, mocked the hammer attack on Nancy Pelosi’s elderly husband, and endorsed more extra-judicial killings.
#Trump Tues night on the conservative network #Newsmax:
“I said, ‘Wouldn’t it really be bad? … wouldn’t it be terrible to throw the president’s wife & the fmr secretary of state — think of it, the fmr secretary of state — but the president’s wife into #jail? … But they want to do it … So, you know, it’s a terrible, terrible path that they’re leading us to, & it’s very possible that it’s going to HAVE TO HAPPEN to them.”
#Trump has made #payback for opponents central to his campaign, at one point declaring to a crowd: “I am your #retribution.” In private, has told advisers & friends that he wants his #DOJ to investigate specific fmr aides & allies who are now critical of him. And he has promised to appoint a special prosecutor to scrutinize #Biden & his family.
In Marci Wheeler's view, the media are doing all of us a big disservice — notably New York Times and Washington Post — by failing to connect Trump's current, blatant promises to seek retribution if he's re-elected to his entire career of seeking retribution. As she notes, this is not a new theme with Trump, and the media are doing far too little to remind us of how constant this theme is in his twisted history.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat comments on Trump's media-crafted appearance at a South Carollina gun store to buy a gun:
"It is clearer than ever that inciting political violence is Trump’s political project, and his campaign appearances and events must be seen in that light."
"What did the media do in response to this broadside threat? Yawned. Oh, rather, it ran another story about voters worried about Joe Biden’s age and the price of gas.
The media has an important role in protecting democracy. If it can’t rouse itself to condemn threats against freedom of the press, it will deserve what happens if Trump is elected."
"Hard to keep track of all the racist, unhinged, authoritarian comments by the former president? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. … See our list of the 10 worst things Trump said in 2023."
“Trump has told us that he thinks the Constitution can and should be suspended when necessary, that what happened on Jan. 6 was justified, that in a second Trump presidency he would seek retribution,. The assumption that our institutions will protect themselves is purely wishful thinking by people who prefer to look the other way.”
Did anyone think he’d answer this question truthfully? He literally lies under oath.
#Trump said Tues that he would not be a #dictator upon returning to office “except for Day One,” as he largely deflected questions at a televised #townhall event about whether he would #abuse his powers to seek #retribution against his political adversaries.
#Republicans#fear they will be targets in #Trump’s ‘#retribution’ campaign
TFG is already attacking those who have endorsed his #GOP opponents or have crossed him in other ways
"On Wednesday, bomb threats forced evacuations, closures or stepped-up security measures at more than a dozen state capitols, in Connecticut, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Wisconsin, Hawaii, Maine, Oklahoma, Illinois, Idaho, South Dakota, Alabama, Alaska, Maryland and Arizona."
"The contrast between the politics of Trump and Biden is not new news! But the contrast in this instance is striking and highlights yet again that what Trump offers to so many of his supporters is the thrill of threatened violence, the frisson of wiping away one’s opponents, the chance for vicarious transgressiveness. It’s a dangerous cocktail of swagger and situational violence."
"The Republican base actively embraces Trump’s grievances; it emulates his pettiness; it supports his childlike inability to accept responsibility. These voters are not sighing in resignation and voting for the lesser of two or three or four evils. They are getting what they want—because they, too, are set on revenge."
"Millions of Americans, stung by the electoral rebukes of their fellow citizens, have become so resentful and detached from reality that they have plunged into a moral void, a vortex that disintegrates questions of politics or policies and replaces them with heroic fantasies of redeeming a supposedly fallen nation."
The electoral rebuke that stung them bitterly was Obama's election.
These voters want chaos. They want cruelty. They want vengeance. They want power-grabs. More than anything, they want a sense that people like them are in control — and people who are not like them are being put back in their place.
As Maya Boddie reports, right-wing white Christians and their pastors — notably white evangelicals — are loving Trump's talk of "retribution" against his and their "enemies." Rather than alienating them, the rhetoric of bloodlust and enemies vanquished thrills them.
A powerful iteration of white Christianiity in the US thrives on generating an endless succession of enemies, to prove the righteousness of the chosen.
Each page yesterday took him just a little more than a minute, so this will take >30 mins.
Between that & the testimony readbacks, also expected to take >30 mins, there will likely be >1 hour this morning w/the jury in the courtroom, not actively deliberating.
#Trump allies are demanding #retribution, & calling on #Republican prosecutors to go after #Democrats. One of Trump’s close allies, the influential #RightWing#ChristianNationalist#CharlieKirk, wondered on X how many Republican AGs & DAs “have stones.” “We aren’t a serious political movement until we are ready to fight fire with fire,” Kirk wrote. “Indict the left, or lose America.”
#GOP elected ofcls are at it too. Rep Mike Collins of Georgia: “Time for Red State AGs & DAs to get busy.”
"Bereft of any vision of positive change, this is a man who is only capable of exploiting an aggrieved people’s worst instincts—who has figured out that he can get what he wants by stoking the fear, hatred and anger of others. He uses violence, not imagination. Conflict, not collaboration. Cruelty, never kindness. Retribution, not affirmation."
"These are the tools of a weak man inciting the mob to satisfy his hunger for carnage.
A man like this sells bibles wrapped in an American flag. Desperate for dollars and loyalty, he laughably claims the bible is his 'favorite; book and that he has many of them. Empty and broken inside, he needs to compare himself to Jesus Christ on the holy weekend of Easter."
Noting that Republican senator James Lankford has stated that he was threatened by a right-wing media personality if Lankford tried to move a border bill before the election, Heather Cox Richardson says,
"It is not a normal part of our political system to have members of Congress deciding what laws to support on the basis of threats."
"Trump’s actions are not those designed to win an election by getting a majority of the votes. They are the tools someone who cannot win a majority uses to seize power.
Trump’s base is shrinking as his actions become more extreme, but he has a big megaphone, and it is getting bigger."