The Trump administration’s jihad against normal Americans will turn them against him
Description
This piece was previously published at The Hot Screen.
In the immediate aftermath of the Charlie Kirk assassination, even before his alleged killer had been identified and arrested, the right-wing political and media firmament identified the “far left” as responsible for his murder, and howled for retribution against not just whomever pulled the trigger, but a far vaster enemy violently opposed to the continued existence of the United States and the values good Americans hold dear. The assassination was proof positive both of the existence of this irredeemable, lawless monster within, and of the necessity of the harshest state measures to crush it out of existence before it ruins America.
So although the explosion of anger and desire for revenge were surely real for many, the current of outrage aimed at long-established political adversaries. In ways both obvious and disturbing, Kirk’s death became the excuse to openly go to war with MAGA’s enemies. From the president on down, the Trump administration indicated that retribution would hardly stop with bringing the shooter to justice; in their expansive vision, all who had supposedly contributed to the shooter’s violence would also be punished. White House Deputy Chief of Staff and key Trump advisor Stephen Miller articulated as well as anyone the crackdown to come. Referring to the “radical left” as “a vast domestic terror movement, he vowed the government would
dismantle and take on the radical left organizations in this country that are fomenting violence. And we are going to do that, under President Trump’s leadership. I don’t care how. It could be a RICO charge, a conspiracy charge, conspiracy against the United States, insurrection. But we are going to do what it takes to dismantle the organizations and the entities that are fomenting riots, that are doxxing, that are trying to inspire terrorism, that are committing acts of wanton violence.And my message is, to all of the domestic terrorists in this country spreading this evil hate: you want us to live in fear, we will not live in fear, but you will live in exile, because the power of law enforcement under President Trump’s leadership will be used to find you, will be used to take away your money, take away your power, and if you’ve broken the law, take away your freedom.
This is all obviously heady stuff for the sociopathic Miller, as words like “insurrection” and “evil hate” and “exile” trip off his tongue — even as it’s equally disturbing for a vast range of Americans who hear their government proposing a vast war against portions of the citizenry. In fact, for most, it is all so sudden and dangerous-sounding that it begs the question: if a supposed “radical left” has so openly been inciting and committing violence across the land, then why hadn’t the administration already acted against it? If a malignant “they” are so transparently “fomenting riots,” where has the FBI or Justice Department been all this time? Reality answers the question: there is no such powerful radical left, and there is no such roiling, widespread violence.
Reality, however, has never been much of a concern for Donald Trump or MAGA. And in the assassination of Kirk, they appear to have glimpsed the promised land of full spectrum MAGA dominance, and a sure path to imposing their fantasy on the rest of the country. By hand-waving away distinctions between violence and speech, between fierce opponents of Trump and stone-cold killers, they clearly think they have an excuse to imprison, intimidate, and outlaw their political adversaries.
But as any criminal undone by an overly elaborate cover story can tell you, it pays to keep your fictions straight. In their enthusiastic hatred, Trump and his allies have made some especially outrageous claims that should come back to haunt them — particularly if their many, many opponents hold them to account. One small but telling detail to start with is how they’ve been so vague about the specific organizations, and illegal acts, behind the alleged left-wing violence. The problem, of course, is that once they start getting more specific, they will have to contend with actual facts to some degree. In the case of those accused of actually fomenting violence, it will raise the question of why the government did not act against such clear violations of the law before. And in the edgier cases, where they attempt to leverage language or ideas into charges of incitement of violence, they will put themselves in a position of needing to provide evidence that reporters, politicians, and ordinary Americans can examine and question. I suspect they know this, and will do what they can to distort the words and actions of the accused, but they will still have to contend with long-standing foes such as facts.
A far more substantial challenge is that while the term “radical left” might initially suggest a discrete, relatively small subset of the population, its vagueness and prior MAGA practice points to a vast array of possible targets. An essential component of MAGA politics is that, over the years, Trump and his allies have identified a range of opponents that encompasses well over half of the American population: women, minorities, the college educated, residents of big cities. Such animosity flows from how very much the Republican Party and its MAGA base wishes to roll back major aspects of modern America, from the diminished role of Christianity and the respect accorded science and expertise, to the rise of gender equality, the increase in sexual freedom, and the increasing racial diversity of our country. So while they may have particular hatred for abortion providers and gender studies professors, the truth is that MAGA arguably considers the majority of Americans to be part of the “radical left,” particularly as they expand the idea of criminality to include not just committing crimes, but contributing to the ideas purportedly driving such crimes.
This is a point that opponents of MAGA must communicate to the public, to the greatest degree possible: that to the far-right MAGA movement, everyone who opposes MAGA can be viewed as an extremist subject to persecution of some kind. Having used the amorphous term “far left” to label whomever they wish as an enemy, none who oppose them can be considered safe.
We need look no further than the events of this week, as we saw Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show suspended because the comedian dared to talk about how Trump and his allies are exploiting Kirk’s assassination for political purposes, and to tell a scathing joke about Trump’s emotionless response to the killing of a person he was supposedly close to. Jimmy Kimmel is a domestic extremist? In what non-MAGA universe does this make any sense? The bottom line is that MAGA’s “enemies” are most of us, and the label of violent extremist can be applied to any or all at the president’s discretion. If you support abortion rights, then aren’t you responsible for the deaths of millions of unborn children, whether or not you yourself are an abortion doctor? If you’re gay, or support gay rights, aren’t you responsible for perverting the laws of nature and draining the nation’s vital sap by subverting the sacred institutions of heterosexual marriage and procreation? And if you’re African-American, or Hispanic, or a white person who supports civil rights, then aren’t you abetting the Great Replacement of the white race that has become so central to MAGA thinking?
The right-wing rage-out over any supposed slights to the memory of slain Charlie Kirk provides a timely, damning guide to the sort of submission that MAGA expects from those who dissen
United States
