The Trump state of terror

 

Before I get into the main topic today, this past weekend John Oliver opined about the public relations fraud called “carbon offsets,” which is where major contributors to greenhouse gases “offset” part of their “contribution” to air pollution by doing things like planting trees. If it sounds like a bad joke, it is; here we see the Kent Parks folks contributing to the cause:

 

But that’s only one part of the two-front attack on civilization as we know it; the other is the threat from far-right political and social activism, in this country opened by Donald Trump who unleashed an army of the mindless once they are stripped of the façade of humanity:

 

Two “soldiers” in this Trumpist horde were the two men convicted of conspiracy to kidnap Michigan Gov. Christine Whitmer, This was the second trial for Barry Croft and Adam Fox after a prior jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict. This time two of their comrades who pleaded guilty testified against them; an undercover FBI agent detailed the conspirators’ activities after the FBI was alerted about the plot that was feared to be going beyond mere bluster. Naturally Croft and Fox claimed that this was all it was; they were not “seriously” considering doing something dumb like kidnapping a governor. They were just playing around, talking about acquiring weapons and explosives, scoping out the governor’s residence, and a potential escape route,

Whether or not these two were just playing a “game” or were serious, it is dangerous to take far-right domestic terrorism without the seriousness it deserves, or be unmindful of the mindlessness that motivates mass shooters; we still don’t know exactly why Stephen Paddock posted himself in a 32^nd floor hotel room in Las Vegas and fired off over 1,000 rounds killing 60 and wounding over 400, but I’m sure that the fact that 25 percent of his victims were Hispanic had nothing to do with it—just like it was “coincidental” that the Thornton, CO Walmart shooting that occurred around the same time where only Hispanics were targeted. At least the domestic terrorist in the El Paso shooting didn’t allow anyone to be “confused” about his motivations.

Those three mass shootings targeting Hispanics all occurred while the Trump administration was demonizing Hispanics, and the 2016 Orlando nightclub mass shooting—in which all the victims were Hispanic—also fit in well with the period in which Trump was calling Hispanics (save for the few he conceded might be “good people”)  “rapists” and “criminals.” I just point this out since it isn’t just blacks. Jews and Muslims who have been targeted by domestic terrorists in this country, and the fact these shootings occurred when Trump was campaigning on, and then in office consumed with, the vilification of Hispanics (and let’s not kid ourselves—legal status or no, they are “all the same”), shouldn’t be seen as merely “coincidental.” In fact these shootings should be seen as a direct connection between Trump’s rhetoric of hate and the violence he has inspired in his zombie army.

The danger of Trump and allowing his representatives—not the people who actually vote for them—to set the moral and ethical agenda in this country should be obvious. Let’s recall what motivated Croft and Fox in the first place: Trump’s attacks on Democratic states’ impositions of pandemic restrictions— and Whitmer in particular (probably because she was a woman), helped to motivate armed people to show up at the state’s capitol building. Over one million people died from COVID in this country, and many more millions would have if the “freedom” of those who thought it was all a “hoax” had their way. Mindless bigots like Croft and Fox were contrary for contrary’s sake; it never entered their mind that there was a public health crisis concerning a virus whose lethality was not yet fully understood, only that thousands had died of it in the city it originated in, and was proving particularly troublesome for the older population.

Normally people like this would be “confused” about how to react when their “freedom” to do as they please comes into conflict with the public welfare. As president Trump needed to put the public good before his own narcissistic hang-ups; the problem is that Trump has never showed an ounce of empathy for anyone but himself—we are seeing now that his relationship with his own children was “transactional.”  Take for example his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who most suspect was the informer concerning the FBI raid; let’s see—save a $2 billion deal with the Saudis, and pass on information to the FBI about someone who would throw him under the bus in a heartbeat. Not too difficult a choice to make.

So Trump is the type who is too focused on himself and seems uncomprehending how his words and deeds justifies the actions of those who have something less than the immunity that he believes he has. People like Croft and Fox are going to prison because they were fool enough to follow a man who wouldn’t give a tinker’s damn about them or lift a finger to help. He would only encourage others to follow him like a Pied Piper leading a pack of lemmings over a cliff into oblivion—and he’d watch them fall and think nothing of it. As we’ve seen in Trump’s statements concerning his felony-level theft of top-secret nuclear documents, this is all about him, not about anyone else.

And this is the man who has incited acts of domestic terror, culminating in the January 6 insurrection. Unlike prior acts of domestic terrorism, like the Oklahoma City bombing and the 2010 airplane suicide attack on the IRS offices in Austin, TX—a state that has had far more than its share of domestic terror attacks—that were meant to start a “civil” or race war, or simply a one-man act of self-delusion, the people who follow Trump believe that there is a “constitutional” and “historical” basis to justify their acts of terror.

Trump’s “cult of personality” puts him on par with the Ayatollah Khomeini calling on his followers to commit such acts of violence, or like certain fascist leaders of the past who persuaded the masses that stripping away the rights and committing violent acts against democratic institutions, political opponents and minorities was an “acceptable” price to pay for the loss of freedom—because “freedom” cannot exist in a society where one side is suppressed or made to “disappear.” A country like that can only survive by terror.