Trump Has Always Been Into Divisiveness But Is He Now Ginning Up Violence And A Civil War?

When crackpot Donald J. Trump was asked at his shit-show on Sunday if he's inciting violence against Democratic governors I’ve seen the interviews of people, he responded that he's "seen the interviews of the people. These are great people... They're got cabin fever." Many of the protestors will likely get COVID-19 and some will spread it to their families, neighbors and friends and some will die. Almost none the protesters were wearing masks and some brought their children and grandchildren to sacrifice.

In 1791 President Washington didn't have a good feeling about a tax on whiskey proposed by Alexander Hamilton (kind of a corporatist of his day), but local government officials in Virginia and Pennsylvania persuaded him it was a good idea. At his urging, Congress passed it, but as a reactionary tax that favored big producers and penalized small local producers and farmers. Virtually no one paid and tax collectors were met with threats of violence. Some were tarred and feathered. By 1793 there were calls for open rebellion. Most of the rebels were drunks but in 1794 there was serious unrest all over western Pennsylvania-- the Whiskey Rebellion. Peace overtures from Washington were spurned and after the Supreme Court ruled that a military response was justified, Washington sent in 12,000 troops to quell the rebellion. Eventually Thomas Jefferson had the tax repealed.

Now let's skip ahead about three centuries. 36% of American voters say they find Trump's pandemic pronouncements believable. 35% find Pence believable. But Trump sent Pence over to Meet the Press to defend him yesterday anyway. There is literally no way to defend Trump without lying. Halfway through the interview, Chuck Todd asked Pence-- who spent the first half lying his ass off about testing-- about Trump's crackpot tweets encouraging insurrection on Friday: "Let me ask you about the president's tweets on Friday, he wants to liberate Minnesota, liberate Michigan, liberate Virginia. All three states have issued guidelines that follow the national advice that you've been giving them. They're following the president's guidelines to the best of their ability. Can you explain what the president is trying to liberate Minnesota from? I don't quite understand that use of language."

Pence: "Well, no one wants to reopen America more than President Donald Trump. And I think the American people have known that from weeks ago when the president declared that important balance, we have to make sure that the cure isn't worse than the disease. Because the reality is that for all of the sacrifice the American people have made, sacrifices that literally have saved lives, the truth is that there are real costs including the health and well-being of the American people to continue to go through the shutdown that we're in today. And so the president laid out new guidelines for every state in the country...

Chuck Todd (as Pence continued lying and filibustering): "I understand that. I've given you a lot of leeway here. I've not been wanting to interrupt you. That's not true, I always want to jump in on some things. I've given you a lot of leeway. Why is the president trying to undermine the guidance you've been laying out and that he's been-- he laid out this guidance on Thursday and undermined it on Friday."

Pence: "I don't accept your premise and I don't think most Americans do either. The president's made it clear, he wants to reopen America. And we laid out guidelines for every state in the country to safely and responsibly reopen their economy at the time and manner of their choosing. We laid out the criteria for when our best scientists believe that would be appropriate. If it was 14 days of declining of cases and they had proper hospital capacity. And we laid out the means that they could move into phase one. When you hear the president, when you see people across the country talking about reopening, every American and this president want to do that in a safe and responsible way. The guidelines for opening up America are a framework for doing that. And we'll work with governors across the country to implement those because we want to, we want to put America back to work as soon as we responsibly can. And at the president's direction we're going to continue to work to do that every day."

Chuck Todd: "It does seem as if the president wants credit for reopening the economy and he wants the governors to get the blame for not opening it fast enough. That's what the tweet seems to imply, that he doesn't want to own the responsibility of these, of these necessary shutdowns."

Pence: [endless stream of lies and bullshit]

In an OpEd for the Washington Post, Mary McCord, a former acting assistant attorney general for national security at the Justice Department warned that Trump's tweets could be violating the law by inciting insurrection.

President Trump incited insurrection Friday against the duly elected governors of the states of Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia. Just a day after issuing guidance for re-opening America that clearly deferred decision-making to state officials-- as it must under our Constitutional order-- the president undercut his own guidance by calling for criminal acts against the governors for not opening fast enough.

Trump tweeted, “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” followed immediately by “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” and then “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!” This follows Wednesday’s demonstration in Michigan, in which armed protestors surrounded the state capitol building in Lansing chanting “Lock her up!” in reference to Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and “We will not comply,” in reference to her extension of the state’s coronavirus-related stay-at-home order. Much smaller and less-armed groups had on Thursday protested on the state capitol grounds in Richmond, Va., and outside the governor’s mansion in St. Paul, Minn.

“Liberate”-- particularly when it’s declared by the chief executive of our republic-- isn’t some sort of cheeky throwaway. Its definition is “to set at liberty,” specifically “to free (something, such as a country) from domination by a foreign power.” We historically associate it with the armed defeat of hostile forces during war, such as the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s control during World War II. Just over a year ago, Trump himself announced that “the United States has liberated all ISIS-controlled territory in Syria and Iraq.”

In that context, it’s not at all unreasonable to consider Trump’s tweets about “liberation” as at least tacit encouragement to citizens to take up arms against duly elected state officials of the party opposite his own, in response to sometimes unpopular but legally issued stay-at-home orders. This is especially so given the president’s reference to the Second Amendment being “under siege” in Virginia, where Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam just signed into law a number of gun-safety bills passed during the most recent session of the state general assembly-- bills that prompted protests by Second Amendment absolutists at the state capitol in January, leading Northam to declare a state of emergency and temporarily ban firearms from the capitol grounds due to the threat of violence.

It’s an echo of the “Second Amendment remedies” rhetoric of the 2010 midterm election. It’s clearly a violation of federalism principles, and it’s quite possibly a crime under federal law. And insurrection or treason against state government is a crime in Virginia, Michigan and Minnesota, as well as most states. Assembling with others to train or practice using firearms or other explosives for use during a civil disorder is also a crime in many states. But the president himself is calling for just that.

Regardless of whether the tweets are criminal on their own, more importantly, they are irresponsible and dangerous. Private armed militias recently expressed eagerness to support the president’s veiled call to arms when he shared a comment on Twitter suggesting that if he were impeached and removed from office, it could lead to civil war:

Just a day before, the Oath Keepers Twitter account tweeted, in an apparent reference to the president, that “All he has to do is call us up. We WILL answer the call.” Months before, vigilante groups responded to Trump’s frequent rhetoric about an “invasion” on America’s southern border by deploying to the border and illegally detaining migrants while heavily armed, dressed in military fatigues and calling themselves the “United Constitutional Patriots.”

Trump has a bully pulpit unlike an ordinary citizen. His twitter account boasts over 77 million followers, but many more see his tweets when they’re retweeted by others, posted on other social media and covered by media outlets. He is prolific, having tweeted more than 50,000 times. And he is influential: his three “liberation” tweets have been retweeted and “liked” hundreds of thousands of times. We are not talking about a typical person when we consider the impact of his statements.

That’s why we can’t write these tweets off as just hyperbole or political banter. And that’s why these tweets aren’t protected free speech. Although generally advocating for the use of force or violation of law is protected (as hard to conceive as that may be when the statements are made by someone in a position of public trust, like the president of the United States), the Supreme Court has previously articulated that where such advocacy is “inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action,” it loses its First Amendment protection. The president’s tweets-- unabashedly using the current crisis to encourage a backlash against lawful and expert-recommended public health measures, falsely claiming a Second Amendment “siege” and calling for insurrection against elected leaders-- have no place in our public discourse and enjoy no protection under our Constitution.