William Lindsey :toad:
"From encouraging his supporters to beat up protesters at his rallies, to invoking the possibility of 'Second Amendment people' attacking Hillary Clinton, to glorifying police brutality, to inciting an insurrection, to suggesting military leaders he doesn’t like should be executed, to mocking Paul Pelosi after he was assaulted by one of his supporters —"
~ Aaron Rupar
https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-shooting-butler-pennsylvania
William Lindsey :toad:
"Why would an assassination attempt make a candidate more popular. Because we live in a country where many people’s entire philosophy of life can fit on the front of a t-shirt."
~ Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
#Trump #violence #fascism #media
/18
https://kareem.substack.com/p/the-trump-assassination-attempt-and
William Lindsey :toad:
"We have to remain clear-eyed about where the real threat to our security and democracy lies. Today, that threat disproportionately lies with Trump’s MAGA movement, which has taken over one of our two political parties, and with Vance who is now aiding and abetting it. These conclusions are backed up by clear evidence."
~ Robert P. Jones
#Trump #violence #fascism #MAGA #Republicans
/19
https://www.whitetoolong.net/p/we-cant-let-political-violence-be
William Lindsey :toad:
"The news media proclaim the image of him with fist raised 'iconic,' begging us to behold him in all his majesty:"
~ Paul Waldman
William Lindsey :toad:
"Authoritarian movements thrive on political violence for a number of reasons.
1. It intimidates ordinary people who might otherwise resist.
2. It destabilizes institutions that are supposed to act as guardrails.
3. Because authoritarian movements are not bound by honor or norms, they can exploit any violence for their own ends.
4. Chaos is a ladder."
~ Jonathan V. Last
William Lindsey :toad:
"See the Reichstag fire; or Mussolini’s use of street violence; or the American tradition of bloody-shirt politics. This is what authoritarian movements do. They promote violence and chaos—and then use the spread of violence as a justification for their illiberal aims."
William Lindsey :toad:
"The reason MAGA loyalists such as J.D. Vance are targeting people who have called out Trump as authoritarian, calling them 'fascists' and blaming them for the shooting, is because those call-outs have educated Americans effectively to recognize the danger we are in.
So the last thing we should be doing now is silencing ourselves."
~ Ruth Ben-Ghiat
#Trump #violence #Republicans #JDVance
/14
https://lucid.substack.com/p/silence-enables-the-autocrat-talk
William Lindsey :toad:
"Two years ago, Congress considered banning 18-20 year-olds from buying AR-15s and other semi-automatic rifles after the Uvalde massacre, and some Republicans were briefly open to doing so but ultimately blocked including a ban in the bipartisan gun bill signed by Biden."
~ Steven Dennis quoted by Greg Dworkin
William Lindsey :toad:
"his vocal admiration for leaders known to be mass killers, and his violent attempt to overthrow constitutional rule in January 2021."
William Lindsey :toad:
"It’s just Orwellian to say that you’re emboldening violence by trying to stop someone from overthrowing liberal democracy and turn the country into an authoritarian state. And yet that is what the Republicans are saying in this terrible, terrible frightening moment. I don’t know that I can remember another moment in my adult life where I felt things were this bleak. But here we are."
~ Peter Beinart
https://peterbeinart.substack.com/p/calling-trump-an-authoritarian-doesnt
William Lindsey :toad:
"Nothing in recent American political life resembles Trump’s call for 'Second-Amendment people' to kill Hillary Clinton, his mockery of Paul Pelosi after an attempted murder, his belittling of Gretchen Whitmer after a kidnapping attempt, the stochastic violence he directs against critics to intimidate them and against his fellow Republicans to keep them in line, the brutal language of his rallies since 2016,"
William Lindsey :toad:
"Fascism feasts on violence. In the years since his own supporters attacked the Capitol to overturn the 2020 election—many of them threatening harm to Speaker Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence—Trump has championed the invaders, would-be kidnappers, and would-be murderers as martyrs and hostages. He has vowed to pardon them if returned to office. His own staffers have testified to the glee with which Trump watched the mayhem on television."
~ David Frum
#violence
/8
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/07/donald-trump-democracy-dictator/679006/
William Lindsey :toad:
"We might be tempted to think that violence against one side must come from the other side. But the bloody genie, once unleashed, often stays close to home. Those who have made violence normal are especially vulnerable, because they will always have colleagues or followers who think they have not gone far enough."
~ Timothy Snyder
William Lindsey :toad:
"•in 2024, the Kansas Republican Party’s March fundraiser where attendees could donate to kick and punch an effigy of President Biden; or Don Jr.’s reposting an image of Biden bound and gagged in the back of a pickup truck;
•or Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson of North Carolina, who is running for the governorship and who is scheduled to speak at the Republican National Convention starting tomorrow, saying just two weeks ago: 'Some folks need killing! It’s time for somebody to say it.'”
/7
William Lindsey :toad:
"•the October 2022 tweet by Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. mocking then–House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul after a home intruder hit him in the head with a hammer; or Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s 2022 campaign video in which she promised to “blow away the Democrats’ socialist agenda” as she took aim with a rifle;"
William Lindsey :toad:
"•in 2023, House Republicans wearing AR-15 lapel pins on the floor of Congress; Representative Don Bacon (R-NE) saying his wife slept with a loaded gun after he voted against Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) for House speaker; or Republican representatives sending Christmas cards showing the whole family toting guns;"
William Lindsey :toad:
"or his 2020 attacks on Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, who became the target of a kidnapping plot; or election workers bombarded with death threats as Trump lied that the 2020 election was stolen;"
William Lindsey :toad:
"glorifying violence and threatening his enemies with it has been a weapon Trump has wielded over and over again throughout his political career.
This is the reason the calls by Trump supporters to turn down the rhetorical temperature in the wake of Saturday’s shooting ring so hollow."
William Lindsey :toad:
"The idea that Democratic opposition to authoritarian plans like those outlined in Project 2025 caused violence might convince MAGA Republicans, but it will likely be a hard sell for Americans who remember things like:
•Trump’s own suggestion in 2016 that 'Second Amendment people=' could solve the problem of Hillary Clinton picking judges;"
~ Heather Cox Richardson
GNU social JP is a social network, courtesy of GNU social JP管理人. It runs on GNU social, version 2.0.2-dev, available under the GNU Affero General Public License.
All GNU social JP content and data are available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.