Kidnap plot a byproduct of our strife
On a late summer day in 1973, terrorists connected to a Palestinian group called Black September invaded a dinner party at an embassy in Sudan and kidnapped 10 people, including the U.S. ambassador and the deputy chief of mission. When President Richard Nixon insisted that the United States “will not pay blackmail,” the kidnappers told the two Americans and a Belgian diplomat to write farewell letters to their wives, and then murdered them.
This long-ago tragedy is worth recalling if you think that the threat of political kidnapping is not a serious matter. The plot by a right-wing group to abduct the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, which the FBI and state troopers blew up this week, was a rare but terrifying incident of political terrorism on American soil. Grateful as we must be for the cool handling of the threat by the law enforcement professionals, we must not dismiss this so quickly. We don’t know, for one thing, whether copycats may have other politicians in their sights. And we need to understand the origins of the crime.
But the stunning response of the president of the United States was to double down on his earlier criticism of the governor, which arguably encouraged the plot in the first place. Rather than expressing concern in the hours after the band was taken down, Donald Trump tweeted that Whitmer “has done a terrible job” and must “open up your state, open up your schools and open up your churches!” He expressed anger that she hadn’t thanked him for the FBI’S work. Several of the would-be kidnappers, NBC News reported, aimed to fight what they saw as an “uprising ” against Trump. The president had encouraged demonstrators who massed at the Michigan capitol in April protesting Whitmer’s moves to stem the spread of COVID -19. “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” Trump tweeted at the time, even as Whitmer and other leaders were trying to tamp down the virus. Many of those protesters carried semi-automatic rifles and anti-whitmer signs, some with swastikas.
What ought to trouble all of us is that this behavior by Trump is unsurprising. We have come to expect neither civility nor courtesy from the president, though you would think his political advisers might have persuaded him to offer some words of comfort to a 49-year-old mother of five who was apparently at great personal risk because of her public service. It’s often said that Trump has no capacity for empathy, but couldn’t he even fake it? He’s quite good at lying.
Perhaps his insensitivity should be seen in the context of a string of inconsistent moves recently that suggest the president might be on emotionally shaky ground. Physicians have pointed to the known side effects of some of the drugs he was taking to treat his COVID -19, which can include psychosis, delirium and mania. And Trump has lately seemed even more unstable than usual.
He abruptly ordered aides to drop talks with Democrats on a coronavirus relief bill, then two days later changed his mind, tweeting Friday that Congress should “Go Big!” (His Senate allies say it’s now too late to act before the election.) He backed out of next week’s scheduled second debate with Joe Biden, then his campaign manager said he would of course debate Biden, but only on a schedule different from what Trump had previously accepted.
And Trump told Fox’s primetime entertainer Sean Hannity Thursday night that both Biden and former President Barack Obama should be indicted immediately for “treason,” an outrageous charge even on the Trumpian Rant Scale. Just what offense against the Republic have these men committed such that they ought to face the death penalty? Even Bill Barr, the toadying attorney general, hasn’t concocted any charges.
Words matter — both what’s said and what’s not. A national leader who baselessly accuses his predecessor and challenger of treason suggests a disrespect for democracy and law; a president who declines to condemn violent insurrectionists, as Trump failed to do during the first debate with Biden, invites violence. That response, Whitmer said Thursday, was seen by extremists like those who targeted her “as a rallying cry — as a call to action.”
A U.S. Army training manual on the threat of kidnapping as a tool of terrorists notes that the crime “affects not only the individual or individuals who are abducted, but generates an anxiety in a larger group of people... which can quickly degenerate to a tragedy.”
Just days ago, the FBI issued an internal intelligence report warning of an imminent “violent extremist threat” posed by farright militias. That report came on the same day as the debate, when the president refused to flatly condemn such groups, instead claiming, contrary to the FBI findings, a greater threat from the left.
What are Americans to do about a leader who ignores clear and present dangers to the public peace, to the delight of those bad actors? We can vote, of course. Election Day is near.
But even if he loses when all the ballots are counted, the turmoil Donald Trump has encouraged, and the threat it poses to American peace and justice, will last. In a political system where a kidnapping plot against a governor draws barely a word of condemnation from the president, restoration of civility and honor will take a long time.