Donald Trump is the accelerant

[babylonsister]

Donald Trump is the accelerant
A comprehensive timeline of Trump encouraging hate groups and political violence.
By Fabiola Cineas Updated Jan 9, 2021, 11:04am EST

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Trump’s messaging on January 6 is precisely in line with how he’s historically addressed violence on the part of hate groups and his supporters: He emboldens it.

As far back as 2015, Trump has been connected to documented acts of violence, with perpetrators claiming that he was even their inspiration. In fact, dozens of people enacted violence in Trump’s name in the years before the Capitol attack, according to a 2020 report from ABC News.

In 2016, a white man told officers “Donald Trump will fix them” while being arrested for threatening his Black neighbors with a knife. That same year, a Florida man threatened to burn down a house next to his because a Muslim family purchased it, claiming that Trump’s Muslim ban made it a reason for “concern.” Then there are the more widely known examples, like Cesar Sayoc, who mailed 16 inoperative pipe bombs to Democratic leaders and referred to Trump as a “surrogate father”; and the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, in 2019 that left 23 dead, where the shooter’s manifesto parroted Trump’s rhetoric about immigrants.

In some cases, Trump denounces the violence, but he often walks back such statements, returning to a message of hate and harm. In August, he defended a teenage supporter who shot three people at a Black Lives Matter protest. And at the first presidential debate of the 2020 election, President Donald Trump shocked many viewers when he was given an opportunity to condemn white supremacists but declined. In October, he equivocated on condemnation of the domestic terrorists who allegedly planned to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, after Trump had stoked outrage over the state’s pandemic safety measures. He criticized Whitmer when the kidnapping plot was revealed and fished for compliments.

Trump has continually refused to recognize what’s at the core of this violence: hate nurtured under a tense national climate that he has helped cultivate.

Trump’s campaign rallies have always been incubation grounds for violence, the sites where Trump spewed hate speech that encouraged physical harm against dissenters. And as president, he has used his platform to encourage violence against American citizens, whether through the police and National Guard or militia groups — unless those citizens are his supporters.

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https://www.vox.com/21506029/trump-violence-tweets-racist-hate-speech

[Sinistrous]

1. Excellent summation of the evil gamesmanship it uses.

Thanks for posting.