Trump delights in political violence, illustrating that he is unfit for office

What does it say about a leader who knows his followers want to engage in political violence and doesn’t move to stop them or even condemn their actions after the fact? It is hard to find anything more un-american than this.

Inevitably, one of the enduring facts of this time is that former President Donald Trump and Trumpism are trying to install political violence as an ongoing fact of life in America. Trump is not an innocent bystander in the current political climate of violence and division. He is the cause.

Since Trump took office in 2017, threats against federal judges and prosecutors have spiked 400%, according to the U.S. Marshals Service. Similarly, threats against the FBI and Justice Department officials have skyrocketed in recent years, especially after agents searched Mar-a-lago last summer.

The Dangers to Democracy report, published by the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats, estimates that 18 million Americans believe that the use of force is justified to restore Trump to the White House. That’s nearly 7% of all adults in the United States, and it’s a number that’s growing rapidly as Trump’s repeated calls to “Stop the steal” stoke the flames of violence and conspiracy. These kinds of numbers would have been unthinkable in, say, 2008.

In June, Trump posted former President Barack Obama’s home address on Truth Social. Later that day, a Jan. 6 rioter named Taylor Taranto was arrested near Obama’s home while driving a van containing multiple firearms. In a Youtube live stream, Taranto told viewers that he was trying to get a “good angle on a shot.”

Two weeks ago, following his arraignment on four felony counts related to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, Trump posted in all-caps a general threat to his Truth Social account saying, “IF YOU COME FOR ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU.”

Almost immediately after that, a woman from Texas called the chambers of the judge overseeing the case and left a threatening voicemail. The voicemail, which described the judge, who is Black, as a “stupid slave n-----” went on to proclaim that “if Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you, so tread lightly, (expletive). You will be targeted personally, publicly, your family, all of it.”

Instead of denouncing the threat, Trump enlisted the help of Republican allies to echo his message on the campaign trail. At the Iowa State Fair, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-fla., took to the stage with Trump and declared “only through force do we make any change in a corrupt town like Washington, D.C. And so, to all my friends here in Iowa, when you see them come for this man, know that they are coming for our movement and they are coming for all of us.”

Then, last week, after Trump’s indictment by a grand jury in Georgia was unsealed, extremists on platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and 4chan began to call for violence against the grand jurors and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. Some of the posts even included photos of the grand jury members — everyday Americans fulfilling their civic duty. Trump has been silent thus far in the wake of the threats.

These are just a few of the most recent examples of a now years-long campaign of political violence perpetrated by Trump and his cult of extremists. By not denouncing these threats and demanding his supporters stop, Trump effectively encourages these shocking acts of menacing intimidation. He likes it, clearly. The idea of violence fascinates him, even though he lacks the personal physical courage to engage in it.

His silence about these threats today mirrors his silence as he watched with rapt joy as his followers attacked the U.S. Capitol — highly pertinent to the charges at hand. For him, violence and manipulation are forms of sport and voyeurism.

Yet Trump is not alone in his love for violence perpetrated against his fellow Americans. His MAGA mercenaries have willfully participated in numerous acts of domestic terrorism and intimidation against poll workers, voters, activists, elected officials, families of elected officials and more. In several instances, they have even committed murder in the pursuit of proving their fealty to the cult of Trump. An investigation by Reuters identified at least 39 people who have lost their lives to clearly identifiable acts of political violence since the Jan. 6 insurrection. Twenty-four of those died in mass killings that threaten anyone who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, no matter what their political beliefs or ideology. Trump supporters don’t care. They’ll do anything to return their king to power.

Trump doesn’t seem to care either. His silence speaks volumes. What does it say about a leader who knows his followers want to engage in political violence and doesn’t move to stop them or even condemn their actions after the fact? It is hard to find anything more un-american than this.

With every threat Trump supporters make and every day of silent endorsement from Trump, he digs the hole deeper. Judges, prosecutors, witnesses, jury members and all Americans no longer have an excuse to ignore the reality that Trumpism is a mob of violent people who pose a direct threat, not just to democratic norms, but to the safety and security of our communities.

Trump’s followers are doing him no favors by introducing threats of violence into American politics. And Trump isn’t doing himself any favors by not putting a stop to it — it simply proves the arguments against him. He’s a mob boss, nothing more, nothing less.