There is a direct through line!
In February 2016, at a rally for the Iowa caucus, trump urged the crowd to ‘knock the crap out of anyone with tomatoes’ after a report that protesters were armed with tomatoes. “Just knock the hell—I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. I promise, I promise. It won’t be so much because the courts agree with us, too.”
On August 9, 2016, at a campaign rally in Wilmington, NC, he suggested that supporters of the Second Amendment could take action to prevent Hillary Clinton from appointing judges who might restrict gun rights.
“Hillary wants to abolish—essentially abolish—the Second Amendment. If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”
Members of the District of Columbia National Guard lined the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, in full tactical gear, with face masks to hide their identity. This was June 2, 2020, the day after federal police aggressively cleared protestors in front of the White House so he could do a photo op with a Bible.
You can draw a line from his promises of paying legal fees for his supporters to engage in physical aggression toward protestors to his dog whistle to Second Amendment supporters to “know what to do” regarding his opponent in the General Election for the highest office of the land.
You can continue that line to the presence of National Guard and federal police as a result of national protests following the police-involved death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020.
Then, there is January 6, 2021. We all watched what happened at the Capitol on that tragic day. We also so what didn’t happen at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, as he stood watching his supporters break into the Capitol, run rampant through the historic building calling for his own vice-president to be hanged, and calling for the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, to be found.
Prior to the insurrection, he led a rally at the Ellipse, where he said, “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” His family urged him to speak to the insurrectionists to get them to stop what they were doing. When he finally did, he said that he loved them and for them to go home.
All of these events encouraging violence led to the horribly, tragic events in Minneapolis this month. Once again, masked men are aggressively confronting, kidnapping, and killing American citizens on the streets of an American city. These Minnesotans are protesting the death of Renee Good on January 7. She was one of their neighbors, friends, and loved ones. They’re protesting the very presence of federal agents who are supposed to be locating people who are here illegally and, allegedly, “bad dudes.” These federal agents are kidnapping people, asking questions later, and dropping off their victims miles from where they live. Once they realize that they screwed up and took a citizen, that citizen, that victim, is on their own to find a way home. They’re not exactly picking them up and returning them to where they were before they were abducted off the streets. That is, those are the ones we know of. We know nothing about those who have been disappeared or sent to a facility in another state. That’s either the two-year-old or the five-year-old. I really can’t keep track of it because it is all so heartbreaking and infuriating that this is happening in my country.
The most recent line, from Renee Good, now includes Alex Pretti. He was a white, male nurse who had the audacity to film the federal agents, from the sidelines. They shoved a female to the ground. While trying to check on her, as was his duty as a medical caregiver, he was pounced upon by multiple agents who shoved him, forced him to the ground, and shot him multiple times. He was trying to help a fellow citizen who had been shoved by federal agents. I had no idea that it was a federal offense punishable by death. I can’t imagine that he did either.
The video is hard to watch. The reality that he was standing there holding a phone to make a recording one minute, and on the ground a minute or so later, likely bleeding out or dead, is hard to comprehend.
How anyone can support someone so unhinged that they openly advocate for violence like this is beyond comprehension.
It’s about power. He has a history of abuse of power. He was credibly accused of rape by his first wife. He was adjudicated to have raped E Jean Carroll. He said, “When you’re a star, they let you do it” in the Access Hollywood tape released in the Fall of 2016. He has basically said that his loyalists will be protected. The current vice-president even said falsely that federal agents have immunity. Now, the Attorney General wants to extort the state of Minnesota. She said that ICE will pull out of the Twin Cities if the state releases data on SNAP recipients and voter registrations. That also sounds hard to believe. It’s almost like quid pro quo. There’s a phrase we all became familiar with when he placed a phone call to the Ukraine president wanting dirt on Joe Biden in 2019 in exchange for aid to Ukraine.
The line, or dots to be connected, or whatever you want to call it, is long. These events were all frightening. It is exhausting trying to keep up with everything. There is no rest for the weary, which is, frankly, most of us. We are frazzled waking up to see what he posted on his own social media app while we tried to sleep.
There are heroes who are doing the hard work. Heather Cox Richardson, as an Historian, is a very important voice in these trying times. Every one of us can stand up. We must stand up. We must unite with family, friends, and neighbors to put an end to the unrest that has consumed the news cycle and our lives.
Be strong. Be brave. Be smart. Be safe.