WTF 3/20/2024

Words matter… 

During an appearance at a rally in Ohio, Donald Trump spoke provocatively regarding his proposal to protect the U.S. auto industry by imposing for a 100% tariff on Chinese-made cars when he said, “Now, if I don’t get elected it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole… that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.”

Liberal and progressive folks jumped all over his use of the word “bloodbath.” And in my opinion rightfully so. 

While in this instance Trump might indeed have been speaking metaphorically in this case vis-à-vis the U.S. auto industry losing jobs due to foreign imports  in particular Chinese imports… and… those of his backers as well as some of his conservative opponents have a semblance of a point that Trump was indulging in some basic political rhetoric, and he was merely talking about a “bloodbath” for the auto industry…. words matter.

In particular in the way Trump uses some specific words that sometimes encourage and/or inspire some of his most ardent followers to sometimes take actions that result in violent activities.

The most pronounced example of this was January 6, 2021 when after Trump delivered some of his unique oratory was a gang of his followers stormed the Capitol and threatened the lives of members of Congress and their support staff, Capitol Police as well as Vice President Pence.

Other incidents of his incendiary and goading usage of words include…

In 2016 Trump said that if he were denied the presidential nomination at the GOP convention, “I think you’d have riots.” Even some of his own party members suggested Trump indulged in using words that often led to violence… Ted Cruz said at one point that Trump had “a consistent pattern of inciting violence.” While Marco Rubio directly linked Trump’s rhetoric to violent clashes in Chicago after a Trump rally was postponed.

In November 2020 he  responded to an adverse ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court by saying it would “induce violence in the streets.”

In March 2023 he said there could be the “potential death & destruction” if he were charged by the Manhattan district attorney with falsifying business records.

Then in August Trump, after the search of his Mar-a-Lago estate for sensitive and classified documents , he said that “terrible things are going to happen” and then took it to another level by furthering a stupid and ignorant comment from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) that there would be “riots in the streets” if he wound up facing any charges involving the possession of the documents.

And in January of this year he said there would be “bedlam in the country” if any of the multitude of the charges against him wound up resulting in him being convicted of criminal activity.

And don’t forget that during the 2020 presidential debate when Trump was asked to repudiate violence by white supremacists and the far-right group the Proud Boy, Trump responded by telling the Proud Boys “stand back and stand by.”

Months later those Proud Boys played an integral role in the January 6 insurrection.

Going back to Rubio’s comments in 2016  he perfectly made the case for just the point I suggested above that words do matter when he said, “The broader anger that now exists in the American political discourse is a direct result of the fact that words have consequences that when you run for President of the United States or if you are President of the United States … you can’t just take on the attitude that I’m going to say whatever I want.” He them double own by saying “You can’t say whatever you want. It has real-life consequences for people in this country, and all over the world. And we’re starting to see it bear out.”

The problem in trying to curtail Trump’s virulent and combustible language that incites his people to threaten and promote potential violence and at times actual violent acts is this that the wanna be dictator that Trump uses our system of justice and sense of fair play to his advantage telling his supporters he is being treated unfairly by the left because of the language that he uses.

In fact recently during a recent Fox News interview host Howard Kurtz said that Trump uses  “over the top, sometimes inflammatory language” to draw attention to himself and his political causes. Which Trump agreed with by saying “if you don’t use certain words, that maybe are not very nice words, nothing will happen.”

And that’s the problem…

Especially when those words sometime leads to actual violence and bloodletting by some of the dunderheads that take his words to be calls to action in the worst possible manner.

Another thousand words…