I want to be very clear -- I unequivocally condemned the violence that we saw last week, violence and vandalism have absolutely no place in our country and no place in our movement. Making America great again has always been about defending the rule of law, supporting the men and women of law enforcement and upholding our nation's most sacred traditions and values. Mob violence goes against everything I believe in, and everything our movement stands for. No true supporter of mine could ever endorse political violence, no true supporter of mine could ever disrespect law enforcement, or our great American flag, no true supporter of mine could ever threaten or harass their fellow Americans. If you do any of these things you are not supporting our movement, you're attacking it, and you are attacking our country. We cannot tolerate it."
You've got to love how he puts his personal interests, his 'movement,' on the same level as he puts the country. Who else would do this?
What he said in the video conflicts with his many documented instances of encouraging and condoning violence, as this article from Vox points out.
Trump has continually refused to recognize what’s at the core of this violence: hate nurtured under a tense national climate that he has helped cultivate.
Trump’s campaign rallies have always been incubation grounds for violence, sites where Trump spewed hate speech that encouraged physical harm against dissenters. And as president, he has used his platform to encourage violence against American citizens, whether through the police and National Guard or militia groups — unless those citizens are his supporters.
The article gives examples of his rhetoric, and of his supporters listening and responding to it. Here are just a few of them.
August 19, 2015: Two Boston brothers invoked Trump when they were arrested for urinating on a homeless man and beating him with a metal pipe. While in custody, one of the brothers told the police, “Trump was right. All of these illegals need to be deported.” The 58-year-old Mexican American they assaulted was a permanent US resident.
In response to the news that the Boston assault was inspired by his rhetoric, Trump did not denounce the violence, instead calling his supporters “passionate.” “I think that would be a shame. I will say, the people that are following me are very passionate. They love this country. They want this country to be great again. But they are very passionate. I will say that,” he told reporters the next day.
On August 21, Trump backtracked a bit, taking a both-sides approach. “Boston incident is terrible. We need energy and passion, but we must treat each other with respect. I would never condone violence,” he tweeted.
November 21, 2015: At a rally in Birmingham, AL, Trump demanded the removal of Black activist Mercutio Southall Jr. after he yelled, “Black lives matter!” Onstage, Trump exclaimed, “Get him the hell out of here! Get him out of here! Throw him out!” In a video captured by CNN, Southall fell to the ground as Trump made his statements and white men appeared to kick and punch him.
...Trump told Fox News the next day, “Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing. I have a lot of fans, and they were not happy about it. And this was a very obnoxious guy who was a troublemaker who was looking to make trouble.”
February 1, 2016: At a campaign rally in Cedar Rapids, IA, Trump told the crowd that... “If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously. Just knock the hell out of them. I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. I promise. There won’t be so much of them because the courts agree with us,” he said.
March 31, 2016: Three people who say they were assaulted at Trump campaign rally in Louisville sued the then-candidate, alleging that he riled up his followers and encouraged violence when he repeatedly yelled, “Get ‘em out of here!” The group sued Trump for incitement to riot, and in April 2017, federal Judge David Hale ruled that their claim was valid since there was sufficient evidence proving their injuries were a “direct and proximate result” of Trump’s comments. “It is plausible that Trump’s direction to ‘get ‘em out of here’ advocated the use of force,” Hale wrote. “It was an order, an instruction, a command.”
Trump appealed the case, and in September 2018, a federal appeals court dismissed the protesters’ claims, saying that Trump’s words were protected under the First Amendment and did not “specifically advocate imminent lawless violence.” An attorney for the plaintiffs called the ruling “unprecedented” and “dangerous,” and a “free pass” for a candidate for public office.
How right they were.
December 2016: After Trump bullied then-Fox News journalist Megyn Kelly for months, Kelly said that Trump’s social media director was responsible for inciting the many death threats she was receiving. “The vast majority of Donald Trump supporters are not at all this way,” Kelly said, according to the Guardian. “It’s that far corner of the internet that really enjoys nastiness and threats and unfortunately there is a man who works for Donald Trump whose job it is to stir these people up and that man needs to stop doing that. His name is Dan Scavino.”
Scavino is now Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications, in addition to his social media role.
January 27, 2017: On the day the Trump administration instituted a ban against travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries, a Muslim Delta employee wearing a hijab was physically and verbally attacked at JFK International Airport in New York. The perpetrator told the victim “[Expletive] Islam. [Expletive] ISIS. Trump is here now. He will get rid of all of you,” according to ABC. On the campaign trail, Trump said he was open to the idea of closing mosques and creating a database of all Muslims in the US, consistently saying that Muslims were a “problem” and a “sickness."
The article also notes a number of studies showing a significant increase in hate crimes during the Trump administration, including a 2019 report which found "counties that hosted a rally with Trump as a headliner experienced a 226 percent increase in hate crimes, and that Trump's rhetoric "may encourage hate crimes."
Back to the violence:
October 18, 2018: At a rally in Montana, Trump celebrated Republican Rep. Greg Gianforte, who body-slammed a reporter in May 2017, telling the crowd, “Any guy who can do a body-slam ... he’s my guy.”
Gianforte assaulted journalist Ben Jacobs after Jacobs asked him a question about the GOP health care bill, on the day before Gianforte won election. He ultimately apologized (after his spokesperson first denied the assault) and pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault. Gianforte was sentenced with 40 hours of community service, 20 hours of anger management, and a $300 fine along with an $85 court fee, in addition to a deferred 180-day jail sentence.
August 5, 2019: A 39-year-old Montana man was charged with felony assault for choking, slamming, and fracturing the skull of a 13-year-old boy who didn’t take his hat off for the national anthem. The man’s attorney told the local newspaper that Trump’s “rhetoric” led to the violent act. “His commander in chief is telling people that if they kneel, they should be fired, or if they burn a flag, they should be punished,” the lawyer said, referencing Trump’s harsh words against athletes like Colin Kaepernick who protested for social justice.
I wonder what that man would have done had he been at Mar-a-Lago for Trump's Super Bowl party antics last year? But I digress.
Back to the violence.
May 29, 2020: Following the first weekend of social justice protests after George Floyd’s killing...(h)is tweet thread showed the tone that would dominate his reaction to the unrest in the following months:
...These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won't let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control, but when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!
Twitter flagged Trump’s tweet for “glorifying violence.”
There's so much more out there, including all of the stuff last year around state-level COVID responses (just ask Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer) and the "stolen election," culminating with his rally speech on January 6th.
It is all a lie.
I'll close with a tweet sent by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich yesterday (emphasis added).
Jan. 6 was supposed to be about talking about the very real election fraud that took place during the 2020 Presidential Election. To expose it. To talk about election reform. To review our systems so that this kind of distrust in our electoral process never happens again. Instead, it became a sad referendum on just how easily people are influenced and misled.
I'm not a subscriber on Gingrich's website, so I don't know for sure who the easily influenced and misled people are, but I'd be willing to guess
- it's not the Trump supporters who took, and continue to take, comfort in the president's often-repeated calls for, and approval of, violence in the MAGA movement;
- it's not the Trump supporters who bought into the president's drumbeat about the election being rigged, which began in earnest with a May 1,2020 tweet stating "Do not allow RIGGED elections" and only ended January 8, 2021 with his permanent banning from Twitter; and
- it's probably not his fellow Republicans, who (for the most part) have been easily influenced by Trump, and misled by him - and who toed the line right up to the bitter end.
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