American Warmongers
Calling for the Murder of their own Constituents
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On September 7, former Arkansas Governor and presidential contender (and loser) Mike Huckabee went on his show to proclaim that if Donald Trump is convicted (of his numerous accused crimes) and thereby cannot be president again, 2024 will be the last election “decided by ballots rather than bullets.” About a month ago, Florida Representative Matt Gaetz (who was credibly accused of sex trafficking) told a crowd, “I cannot stand these people that are destroying our country. They are opening our borders. They are weaponizing our federal law enforcement against patriotic Americans who love this nation as we should… But we know that only through force do we make any change in a corrupt town like Washington, D.C.” [emphasis added]. In June, Arizona Congressman Andy Biggs stated, “We have now reached a war phase. An eye for an eye.”
Since early in the Trump presidency, some Republican politicians in America have espoused various views about employing violence to meet their political ends. After the January 6 insurrection, researchers found that 56% of self-identified Republican voters agreed with the sentiment that “if elected leaders will not protect America, the people must do it themselves even if it requires taking violent action.” What “protect America” meant was not clearly defined.
Following the Trump presidency, and his subsequent indictment for a litany of crimes (91 charges running), Republicans have ramped up their rhetoric. Enticed, no doubt, by Trump’s own history of violent language, a small but vocal minority of politicians seem intent on taking it to a new level. And members of their obedient electorate have followed suit.
Someone going by the name of Belac186, for example, posted online “The only way this country ever becomes anything like the Constitution says this country should be is if thousands of traitorous rats are publicly executed.” Another, named Nerdrem1, chortled “Millions. The real problem is the people that vote for them, as long as they exist the problem can’t be solved.” There are tens of thousands (if not more) of examples like this in the comments posted on sites like Fox News, Rumble, YouTube, X (or Twitter), and many, many more.
Despite the fact that this very kind of rhetoric led to a violent attempt to usurp power in Trump’s favor, leading to the death or injury of hundreds of police officers, certain politicians continue to spew it believing—apparently—that they can hide behind the US Constitution’s First Amendment protection of free speech.
Opponents of such extremism often dismiss these types of severe statements as mere false bravado, using derisive terms for such people who make them like the “Gravy Seals” or “Meal Team Six” to describe them. One can understand their bemused cynicism when obese men dress in fatigues and hang a weapon over their shoulders pretending to be soldiers, which leads to slight alterations in their online photos.
Source: Reddit
But in a country literally teeming with guns, where the gravest danger of death to children is homicide by firearm, where more than 4,000 mass shootings have occurred in less than a decade, where more people are killed by firearms than at any point in the last quarter century, this is a serious problem. Political speech calling, or even just intimating support, for violence has real-world effects.
Lawmakers, judges, grand jurors, and others have had to increase their personal security in the face of numerous death threats. In October of 2020, the FBI charged 13 people with conspiring to kidnap the Governor of Michigan. FBI agents shot and killed a 74-year-old self-described “MAGA Trumper” who threatened to assassinate President Biden when the man pointed his gun at those agents. On January 6, 2021, thousands of people answered the call to this kind of speech, leading to many injuries and deaths as mentioned, but also to the destruction of thousands of lives as many of the participants found theirs and their families’ lives upended by criminal records and, in many, cases jail time. While none of the participants deserve any sympathy, it may have only been a matter of luck that it did not turn into a bloodbath.
Data sourced from: gun-control.procon.org
Traitorous groups like the Proud Boys tried their hardest to turn the January 6 coup attempt into a bloody overthrow. Joseph Biggs, one of the leaders of that group, would routinely say things on the Proud Boys’ livestream show like, “evil scum, and they all deserve to die a traitor’s death.”
Despite frequent similar commentary among many of their members, the Proud Boys’ efforts were hampered by a number of random events, which helped prohibit them from conducting the level of violence at the capitol that they had hoped. In one case, member Jeremy Bertino had to opt out of the insurrection because a few days prior a man he attempted to bully nearly stabbed him to death. Their leader, Enrique Tarrio, found himself in the hands of the law, arrested for destruction of property and possession of high-capacity firearm magazines, crimes he committed a few days before the capitol invasion. Upon his release, police demanded he leave the DC area, forcing him to also miss the event. Thankfully Biggs, Tarrio, and most of the leadership and chief soldiers of this criminal gang will spend decades in prison following their conviction for seditious conspiracy and other crimes. Some of them blubbered like babies at the pronouncement of their sentencing.
The Proud Boys weren’t the only ones. Another group, the Oath Keepers, also recently saw a large number of leaders whisked off to prison for their traitorous actions. Members from this group made the same kinds of statements in private chats among themselves. One wrote, “There is only one way. It is not signs. It’s not rallies. It’s fucking bullets.” Their leader, Stewart Rhodes, often said things like, “Either Trump gets off his ass and uses the Insurrection Act to defeat the Chicom puppet coup or we will have to rise up in insurrection (rebellion) against the ChiCom puppet Biden. Take your pick.”
Contrary to many supportive statements by politicians and pundits, this group also had concrete plans to turn to lethal violence at the event. Kenneth Harrelson and Thomas Caldwell communicated via an encrypted app about “quick reaction forces” camped out at a hotel near the capitol, armed with numerous weapons, including firearms. Harrelson, who tearfully pleaded for mercy before the court, received over 4 years in prison. Harrelson and Caldwell were acquitted of the seditious conspiracy charge, primarily because the federal judge deemed these two as low-level soldiers not privy to the larger plan. Both were convicted of other charges, including obstruction of an official proceeding, and tampering with documents or proceedings. Nonetheless, many others within this group will spend decades rotting in prison, including Rhodes who was sentenced to 18 years. Clearly, when politicians motivate people to commit acts of violence, there are plenty who will heed the call.
What is particularly galling about politicians like Gaetz, Andy Biggs, and others, is that they engage in this seditious conduct in support of their depraved desire to obtain power because they are incapable of doing governance that would legitimately earn them re-election. Congress’s Republican party has not passed any significant legislation—even when it held the majority—over at least the past 7 years, except for a single one that benefitted mostly wealthy people and businesses. In 2019, for example, the party passed just 70 bills, nearly all routine or symbolic, and that number constituted a dramatic reduction compared to years past, even for mere conventional acts. In most years, routine bills, such as renewals of previous ones or those undoing sunset provisions usually total more than 300.
This indicates that the party has failed based on a lack of legislative agenda over a very long time or, perhaps more accurately, conveys it simply does not even have a legislative agenda. Moreover, this inaction has had serious deleterious effects on their constituencies. The result has been a relative disaster for many so-called “Red” states or subordinate districts (meaning states or districts under Republican control). For example, over the past decade or so, “Blue” districts have seen a surge in wealth, while Red states have seen a slow decline.
Gun crime is primarily a Red state problem.
Mortality is also worse among Republican constituencies.
The states leading the category of poorest education are nearly all comprised of Republican-voting constituencies (1 = worst, 10 = least worst).
West Virginia - Red
Mississippi - Red
Louisiana - Red
Arkansas - Red
Alabama - Red
Oklahoma - Red
Nevada - Mix
Kentucky - Red
New Mexico - Mix
Texas - Red
These statistics strongly correlate to the tendency of members of this party to resort to warmongering language against fellow citizens of their own country, as opposed to focusing on passing legislation to improve their districts. The evidence suggests that the party’s failure to govern is putting their hold on power at considerable risk. It is why many states have seen the party put forward legislation diminishing voting rights, in an attempt to thwart the voting power of constituents especially harmed by their representatives' action or inaction.
When that fails, the last resort is to promote fear. Fear-based rhetoric is a party staple for the Republican party; it is a response to the absence of governance, and the results tend to speak for themselves. As Republican-controlled areas continue to experience considerable decline in virtually every metric while their counterparts soar to numerous successes, the faith in leadership of people living in those disaffected areas will understandably whither.
To keep their voting base on track with them, Republican politicians necessarily employ continuously evolving tactics. In prior days, this typically involved targeting specific groups or topics by continuously and repeatedly lying about them. Some entities, like Fox News, have crafted enormous empires out of trumpeting these lies to their audience—and that network has paid, and likely will continue to pay, dearly for it in the form of defamation and other lawsuits. But things have taken an acutely dark turn since the Trump presidency began.
Instead of simply obfuscating or outright lying about purely political issues, many party members have chosen to attack the principles of American government itself. While this assault began relatively early in the Trump presidency, it exploded into the behemoth it is today as the 2020 election approached and re-election became a glaring pipe-dream for Trump. Even before the bulk of the voting started, certain members of Trump’s inner circle began devising a scheme to hold onto power irrespective of the election results. This culminated in a massive conspiracy of election fraud, netting dozens of arrests—including Trump’s own, with many more certainly possible to come. See below for one prong of the conspiracy that took place in Michigan.
As the elector conspiracy swiftly fell apart, planning commenced for the next effort—a violent insurrection with the intent to keep Trump in power. It began, according to the DC criminal indictment,
by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to convince the Vice President to accept the Defendant's fraudulent electors, reject legitimate electoral votes, or send legitimate electoral votes to state legislatures for review rather than count them. When that failed, the Defendant attempted to use a crowd of supporters that he had gathered in Washington, D.C., to pressure the Vice President to fraudulently alter the election results.
Throughout late December of 2020, the indictment continues, Trump repeatedly urged his supporters—which included the violent gangs of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, among others—to come to the capitol for a “wild” event.
Prosecutors allege that Trump’s barrage of tweets and public statements sought to persuade the Vice President (Mike Pence) to illegally deviate from his appointed role in counting votes for the election. Trump’s amplifications and statements to the Vice President himself aroused so much concern that the VP’s Chief of Staff alerted the Secret Service.
On the day of the attempted coup Trump, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, and other (now co-defendants) riled up the crowd by falsely asserting that the VP could and would reject what they called fraudulent votes, though the indictment lays out in great detail that they knew all of these claims were false. Shortly thereafter, upon the (also false) statement that Trump would be going to the Capitol with them, thousands of people marched there, eventually smashing their way inside and causing death or injury to more than a hundred police officers while shouting “hang Mike Pence,” stealing items, and even defecating and urinating in various places inside.
Source: New York Times
Since law enforcement finally began catching up to this spree of lawlessness, the rhetoric of violence has only increased among some. Absent any tactic but the occasional attempt at whataboutism, it seems many Republicans have concluded that a strategy of provoking violence comprises their last bastion for maintaining power. Adopting this strategy has turned the USA—already the most violent of the so-called advanced countries of the world by an enormous margin—into a potential powder keg.
Donald Trump continues to lead the charge, routinely attacking everyone involved in his various criminal and civil cases, and anyone else who occurs to him at a given moment. Some have argued it is part of a strategy for declaring a mistrial, while others believe it is delusional lashing out by a cornered animal.
Whatever the case, there stands a chance that it will end at some point if the the judge presiding over the DC criminal case follows through on her initial warning to Trump, that she “will be scrutinizing [any attempt to intimidate witnesses] very carefully” and punishes or remands him pre-trial for doing it. [All the judges should be doing this, but some have shown their own corrupt intent related to their specific proceedings]. As a note, any other defendant would long ago have been thrown in jail pre-trial for the same or similar actions. Of course, the other way it may end if even the most stalwart judges fail to hold him accountable for his abhorrent behavior is in the death of some or many people.
For other politicians, they remain—for now—protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution. As more people suffer threatened or real harm, however, the mood of the majority of the public who finds this behavior offensive or even treasonous will (hopefully) eventually lead to action. Supreme Court legend Louis Brandeis wrote in 1927:
It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears. To justify suppression of free speech there must be reasonable ground to fear that serious evil will result if free speech is practiced. There must be reasonable ground to believe that the danger apprehended is imminent. There must be reasonable ground to believe that the evil to be prevented is a serious one.
What present-day Republican politicians are doing is quintessentially the opposite of freeing anyone from the bondage of irrational fears. Instead, they are hiding behind the veneer of free speech to purposefully stoke irrational fears—fears falsely inflated by saying things such as that the government “can do this to you,” referring to indicting people for committing crimes.
While it is inherently true that the government can indict you for crimes allegedly committed, it is said in a way meant as a threat to innocent people. They continue to suggest that the indictments of Trump and numerous other co-conspirators represent some kind of political persecution, ignoring the thousands of pages of legal documents, and the millions of pages of evidence supporting these criminal charges. Rudy Giuliani, a former US attorney who has been indicted, humiliated by his actions, and who has subsequently lost his law license, said this of one of the prosecutors prosecuting him:
She has violated people’s First Amendment right to advocate the government to petition the government for grievances like an election they believe was poorly conducted or falsely conducted. People have a right to believe that in America.
This narrative, patently false as it is, feeds the violent rhetoric of people like Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Chip Roy, Andy Biggs, and other traitorous usurpers. Judge Brandeis’ warning is salient. Danger is imminent. These people must be shut down. Lives will be lost if they are not.
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I am a Certified Forensic Computer Examiner, Certified Crime Analyst, Certified Fraud Examiner, and Certified Financial Crimes Investigator with a Juris Doctor and a Master’s degree in history. I spent 10 years working in the New York State Division of Criminal Justice as Senior Analyst and Investigator.
Today I work both in the United States and Nepal, and I currently run a non-profit that uses mobile applications and other technologies to create Early Alert Systems for natural disasters for people living in remote or poor areas. In addition, I teach Tibetan history and culture, and courses on the environmental issues of the Himalayas both in Nepal and on the Tibetan plateau. For detailed analyses on law and politics involving the United States, head over to my Medium page.
Republican or “right leaning” lies and scams are pervasive, from PACS, to the NRA, all the way to the Supreme Court. It is not a partisan position, it is simply fact. For more proof, see below.
