DAVID LEONHARDT: It isn't complicated: Trump encourages violence
Tuesday, March 19, 2019 -- The president of the United States suggested last week that his political supporters might resort to violence if they didn't get their way. The statement didn't even get that much attention. I'm guessing you heard a lot more about the college-admissions scandal than about the president's threat of extralegal violence. So let me tell you a little more about the threat.
Posted — UpdatedThe president of the United States suggested last week that his political supporters might resort to violence if they didn’t get their way.
The statement didn’t even get that much attention. I’m guessing you heard a lot more about the college-admissions scandal than about the president’s threat of extralegal violence. So let me tell you a little more about the threat.
To Trump, the incident was part of a larger problem: “You know, the left plays a tougher game. It’s very funny. I actually think that the people on the right are tougher, but they don’t play it tougher. OK? I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump. I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad.”
But they do matter. The president’s continued encouragement of violence — and of white nationalism — is part of the reason that white-nationalist violence is increasing. Funny how that works.
After Trump’s latest threat, I reached out to several experts in democracy and authoritarianism to ask what they made of it. Their answers were consistent: No, the United States does not appear at risk of widespread political violence anytime soon. But Trump’s words are still corroding democracy and public safety.
The United States, thank goodness, does not have armed citizen militias carrying out regular attacks, as those other countries did. But our situation is still worrisome. “Violent talk can, at minimum, encourage lone-wolf violence,” Steven Levitsky, Ziblatt’s co-author and a Harvard political scientist, said. “It can also slowly normalize political violence, turning discourse and ideas that were once unsayable and even unthinkable into things that are sayable and thinkable.”
Drawing a direct line from the purveyors of hateful rhetoric to any specific hate crime is usually impossible. And it’s usually a mistake to try. The motive for these crimes — be it in New Zealand last week or Pittsburgh last year — is typically a stew of mental illness, personal anger and mixed-up ideology. Trump doesn’t deserve to be blamed for any specific crime. But he does deserve blame for the trend.
It isn’t very complicated: The man with the world’s largest bully pulpit keeps encouraging violence and white nationalism. Lo and behold, white-nationalist violence is on the rise. You have to work pretty hard to persuade yourself that’s just a big coincidence.
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