Trump's phrase "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" is an unattributed quote of Walter Headley, Miami's police chief in 1967. It was a threat to citizens who were upset that police had terrorized a black teenager by holding him over a bridge: washingtonpost.com/news/retropoli…
Trump is very clearly settling on a Nixon re-election strategy now. While Nixon was far more intelligent than Trump, he was personally unpopular like Trump. Where he succeeded was that he leveraged white fear of race riots to garner votes from reluctant citizens.
White nationalists, meanwhile, are actively working to subvert peaceful protests of police brutality by injecting violent rhetoric and action in the hopes of sparking a race war--or as they call it "boogaloo" rawstory.com/2020/05/they-w…
Things are going to get much, much worse in this country as the election gets closer--especially if Trump continues to lag in the polls.
Remember: In 2016 Trump regularly encouraged his supporters to violently assault racial justice advocates: snopes.com/fact-check/don…
Remember: In 2016 Trump regularly encouraged his supporters to violently assault racial justice advocates: snopes.com/fact-check/don…
He gave a preview of what he was going to do ahead of the 2018 midterm elections when he and his media lickspittles raged daily about an "INVASION" of "caravans" of illegal immigrants who supposedly were going to violently enter the country. It never happened, of course.
If you ever wondered what things were like in the latter part of the 1960s when things were so fucked up, Donald Trump is doing his damnedest to reenact it.
The mail-in voting lies have two purposes: 1) To distract from 100K covid deaths and 2) To plant the seed in his supporters minds as a "proof" that if he loses, it was because of Democratic cheating
The mail-in voting lies have two purposes: 1) To distract from 100K covid deaths and 2) to plant the seed in his supporters' minds that any general election loss is invalid and the product of cheating.
Trump today previewed another thing he'll do much more of as November approaches: He's going to severely ramp up threats to the media and to tech companies.
These threats won't last in court. But they serve to intimidate companies from taking further action against him.
These threats won't last in court. But they serve to intimidate companies from taking further action against him.
In a matter of minutes after he unveiled his bogus CDA §230 order, Trump repeated in all-caps the same lies about mail voting that Twitter had just fact-checked.
Twitter has done nothing in response:
Twitter has done nothing in response:
Trump will also almost certainly leverage the DOJ to go after the news media in multiple ways either through broadcast licensing requirements, anti-trust lawsuits, or other means. He will try to leverage legit public policy needs to intimidate people who can harm him.
The one thing that has been frustrating in Trump's attempt to reenact Nixon '72 is that the more moderate Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, won the primaries. The GOP was fantasizing about a Sanders run. "SOCIALISM IS COMING" was the theme of CPAC.
Biden's unwillingness to constantly put himself in public is the exactly correct strategy for him to be following in response to Trump's efforts--at least for now.
If the election is about Trump, he will lose. If he can make it about something--ANYTHING--else, he has a chance.
If the election is about Trump, he will lose. If he can make it about something--ANYTHING--else, he has a chance.
Of course in 2020, we also have to contend with the "Reopen" movement which has been seized on by the militia movement that last flared up in the 1990s. In NC, one of their leaders said followers should be "willing to kill people" rawstory.com/2020/05/husban…
And let's not forget that Russia has not gone anywhere. They will be back, guaranteed. And, after he got away with intimidating Ukraine, Trump will almost certainly seek to use foreign intelligence services.
Throughout all of the chaos that we will see, the one constant will be conservative media shills who will literally defend anything Trump does and portray the most powerful person in the world as a tender, innocent victim.
So buckle up! We're in for one hell of a ride! /end
So buckle up! We're in for one hell of a ride! /end
UPDATE: How will Trump's strategy of doing anything to win work? Right-wing media. They will rationalize anything he does. They're doing it now with his calls for killing citizens:
