More Dangerous Than Ever, Trump and the GOP Must Be Defeated at the Ballot Box

Questions are being raised about the security lapses that made possible the assassination attempt against Donald Trump last Saturday, and whether or not the Secret Service could have done more to monitor and detain the shooter, a “suspicious character” who had apparently been present in the rally’s vicinity carrying an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle. Questions are also being raised about whether security at this week’s RNC’s convention in Milwaukee will be sufficient to protect the assemble crowd of MAGA Republicans coming together to anoint their Leader. And, to be clear, proper security at all events is more important now than ever.

Curiously absent from most commentary is the fact that both Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are “open carry” states where any adult can legally carry a firearm, including a rifle, in public. So too Michigan, where in the Spring of 2020 armed protesters of Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer actually lined the halls of the Statehouse in an act of blatant political intimidation that was celebrated by Donald Trump.

Also unmentioned is the role that Donald Trump has consistently played not simply in vociferously denouncing efforts to regulate guns, but in deliberately mobilizing his followers in support of what he has himself called “second Amendment solutions” to Democratic opposition.

Back in April of 2020, while attacking COVID regulations in the heat of his re-election fight, Trump Tweeted in succession, “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2^nd Amendment. It is under siege!” “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” and “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” And in October of 2020, after a plot to kidnap and kill Michigan Governor Whitmer was foiled, Trump raised questions about the demonstrably true allegations, leading Michigan supporters at a rally in chants of “Lock her up!”

This is not ancient history. The explicit incitement of hatred of and violence towards his opponents was Trump’s calling card long before the violent January 6, 2021 insurrection.

Back in 2019, I published a piece on Trump’s rhetorical performance of violence at the National Rifle Association convention in Indianapolis. I quoted extensively from Trump’s denunciations of the Mueller investigation as an attempted “coup” against “the people”: “They’re bad apples. They tried for a coup; didn’t work out so well. And I didn’t need a gun for that one, did I? All was taking place at the highest levels in Washington, D.C. You’ve been watching, you’ve been seeing. You’ve been looking at things that you wouldn’t have believed possible in our country. Corruption at the highest level — a disgrace. Spying, surveillance, trying for an overthrow. And we caught them. We caught them. Who would have thought in our country?”

I noted that “it was no mistake that Trump, ever the tribune of popular justice, began with a half-joking nod to violence (“And I didn’t need a gun for that one, did I?), and that he chose to end his speech by invoking the memory of the Minutemen who fought the British at the start of the American Revolution:

Two months before the American Revolution broke out, with the shot heard around the world, a group of patriots gathered along a bridge in Salem, Massachusetts. In the preceding months, British soldiers had confiscated muskets in Boston. You know the story well. Gunpowder was seized in Somerville. And the patriots in Salem knew that the Redcoats would soon come for the town’s cannons. But the Americans were prepared — they already loved our country — and they were determined to defend their rights to the death. When hundreds of British soldiers arrived at the bridge, the Americans stood firm, blocking their path. When swords were drawn, they didn’t flinch. . . In the courageous actions of those early Americans, we see the defiant and determined spirit of patriotism that has always willed America to its greatest victories. It is a spirit that is passed down from generation to generation, from fathers and mothers to sons and daughters. It is the spirit that lives in each and every one of you. Our duty, our responsibility, our sacred charge, is to preserve the freedoms that our ancestors gave their very lives to secure. Because no matter how many centuries go by, no matter how much the world changes, the central drama of human history remains the same. On one side are those who seek power, control, and domination. And on the other side are patriots like those in this hall who stand upright and plant their feet in eternal defense of our liberty.

This was a clear endorsement of and incitement to the militia movement and to a spirit of vigilantism with a long history in our country.

This past weekend it would appear that Trump was, in words made famous by Shakespeare, “hoist by his own petard,” a victim of the very gun-crazed vigilantism that he alone–among every major U.S. President or Presidential candidate in living memory–has proudly extolled for decades.

His shooting, like any such shooting, is an affront to human decency and an offense to both criminal law and the norms of constitutional democracy.

But we must not forget that it is Trump himself whose entire political “brand” centers on public cruelty, appeals to violence, and a relentless assault on the norms of democracy.

He is the unfortunate victim of an awful crime committed by a crazed gunman.

But it is beyond absurd to cast him as a victim of a widespread hatred of constitutional democracy. For nobody has done more than Trump to delegitimize and destroy constitutional democracy in this country. He is no martyr of popular government. And it is more urgent now than ever that the threats posed by his rhetoric and his political vision be criticized, and that he be defeated at the voting booth this November.