"An Invitation To Violence" From The GQP

 

 

The legions of loons comprising the Malignant Loser's supporters have been preparing for the moment the first search warrant, indictment or arrest of their criminal cult leader hit the fan.  Naturally, the predictable, well- orchestrated firestorm has included threats of violence and retribution from Republican officials, media shills and anonymous asshats:

For months, right-wing agitators with millions of followers have peddled the idea that a moment was coming soon when violence would become necessary — a patriotic duty — to save the republic.

With the FBI search Monday of Donald Trump’s compound in Florida, that moment is now, according to enraged commentators’ all-caps, exclamation-pointed screeds urging supporters of the former president to take up arms. Within hours of the search at Mar-a-Lago, a chorus of Republican lawmakers, conservative talk-show hosts, anti-government provocateurs and pro-Trump conspiracy theorists began issuing explicit or thinly veiled calls for violence.

“Today is war. That is all you will get on today’s show,” right-wing podcaster Steven Crowder announced Tuesday to his nearly 2 million followers on Twitter, referring to the program that goes to his YouTube audience of 5.6 million.

Extremism expert Caroline Orr Bueno says this is an opportunity that craven Republican fascists are sure to exploit rather than defuse:

“This whole situation is red meat for their base. They use events like this to feed into this fantasy they’ve co-created with their supporters, and defusing the situation would require stepping out of that alternate reality,” said Orr Bueno, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Maryland who studies disinformation. “They’re not going to do that, particularly with 2024 right around the corner.”

Aaron Blake reported on much the same thing:

For now, though, we don’t yet know much about what was in the search warrant used to raid Donald Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago on Monday. We do know that the raid concerned the removal of classified documents from the White House and that, according to Trump, agents raided his safe.

But we also quickly found out that a lot of influential people are rather uninterested in any of that, reflexively shouting “witch hunt” and baselessly blaming President Biden for the raid in a way that bodes very poorly for whatever comes next in this process. Trump has marshaled his army of supporters to declare, in knee-jerk fashion, any legal scrutiny of him a deep-state operation.  [snip]

Trump immediately likened the raid to what happens in third-world countries. Plenty happily echoed that talking point, including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and the House Judiciary Committee’s Republicans, led by Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio). “Doesn’t the FBI have better things to do than harass the former PRESIDENT?” read a tweet from the House Judiciary GOP’s account.  [snip]

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) assured Monday night that Garland had better be prepared to answer questions. But even without any of those questions answered, McCarthy declared: “The Department of Justice has reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization.” The Republican National Committee declared that “Democrats continually weaponize the bureaucracy against Republicans. This raid is outrageous.”

Of course, protecting their cult leader means, in many instances, self- preservation both in terms of political viability and legal accountability.

After referencing Ruby Ridge, Waco and the Oklahoma City bombing, Dana Milbank points out where all this predictable but irresponsible and unpatriotic rhetoric is likely to lead:

Now, as in both of those cases, we are approaching the midterm elections of an incumbent Democratic president’s first term. Now, as in both cases, right-wing, anti-government groups are ascendant. And now it is easier for a group, or even a single mentally unstable person, to unleash mass carnage. Explosives are lighter. Inexpensive switches made on 3D printers can turn ordinary Glock handguns into fully automatic weapons capable of firing more than 15 rounds per second. The internet and encrypted communications facilitate widespread radicalization and coordination.

Monday’s search of Mar-a-Lago puts us at a perilous moment. NBC News reporter Ben Collins, who tracks pro-Trump online forums, tweeted that the posts Monday night were “as violent as I’ve seen them since before January 6th. Maybe even more so.”

A lot of the faux bravado may "just" be chatter from chickenshits who are safe inside their studios or Capitol Hill offices.  But, all you need is one unhinged loon who takes the hyperventilated rhetoric to heart to have the kind of situation Milbank describes, and that we've already seen in our not- too- distant past. 

Forewarned is forearmed.

(Cartoon: Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)