"Does anyone remember 'American carnage'? In his 2017 inaugural address Donald Trump portrayed a collapsing society, emphasizing in particular the 'crime and gangs and drugs' destroying America’s cities.
"It was a peculiar and disturbing speech, in part because it bore no relationship to reality. Then as now, America had many problems. But runaway urban crime wasn’t one of them. In fact, Trump chose to proclaim urban carnage after a remarkable generation-long run of plunging crime in our major cities. New York, for example, had only 335 murders in 2016, down from 2,262 in 1990.
"So what was that about?
"At the time, I thought it was mostly about sadism. Trump clearly loves punishing people, so he was eager to portray a nation full of people who needed punishing. And it remains true, as Adam Serwer pointed out back in 2018, that for Trump and many of his supporters cruelty is a goal in itself, that they rejoice in the suffering of those they hate and fear.
"But the events unfolding in Los Angeles as you
read this and, I fear, the events likely to unfold across much of
America soon, quite possibly this weekend, suggest that the motivations
of Trump and his cronies go deeper than mere (mere!) sadism. They want
to use false claims of chaos to justify a power grab that, if
successful, would mark the end of the American experiment..." -- Nobel economist Paul Krugman, writing in his Substack that "We Finally Know What 'American Carnage' Was About." It was about the Malignant Fascist wreaking carnage on American democracy.
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