Editorials & Other Articles

marmar

(78,025 posts) Mon Jun 17, 2024, 07:50 AM Jun 2024

Trump unleashed: This is the calm before the storm

Trump unleashed: This is the calm before the storm
We will look back at these months before the election and Donald Trump’s sentencing as relatively good times

By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA
Senior Writer
PUBLISHED JUNE 17, 2024 6:00AM (EDT)

(Salon) Donald Trump is unleashed.

Following his historic felony conviction in New York for election interference, the former president has become even more dangerous. As the 2024 election approaches and he feels more pressure from the potential of time in prison for his crimes, Trump’s violent and antisocial behavior will only escalate.

....(snip)....

Trump’s campaign speeches have become filled with even more menace — what MSNBC host Rachel Maddow has astutely described as “pornographically violent” — even by his standards. While it is easy to focus on Trump’s “unhinged” behavior as he obsesses about his fear of sharks and the evils of electric trucks, the sinister nature of Trump’s speeches and his dark charisma should not be ignored or otherwise overlooked or deemphasized. Trump’s MAGA cultists treat his speeches and rallies like a type of religious service where they are worshipping their Dear Leader as a type of prophet and messiah-god-martyr.

....(snip)....

In a democracy, the news media is supposed to serve as watchdogs who hold the powerful accountable and educate the public so that they can make informed voting and other political decisions. Ideally, the news media should tell the public what is important, how to think about it, and then what to do about it. In a country such as the United States that is experiencing a democracy crisis, those responsibilities are heightened. In the Age of Trump, the American news media has mostly failed in those obligations and responsibilities. To that point, the mainstream news media has continued to mostly ignore Donald Trump’s increasingly dangerous language, as seen in his fundraising emails and coordinated campaign propaganda, to radicalize his MAGA people and other followers into committing acts of violence if he is sentenced to prison for his many crimes and/or loses the 2024 election.

....(snip)....

There will be claims that this is all “overheated rhetoric," and that Trump is kidding because it is part of his “performance”. As author Masha Gessen warns, always believe the autocrat and authoritarian, they are not kidding. Moreover, there is little to no substantive evidence to suggest that Trump and his agents are just “performing” their threats of violence and revenge. In reality, this strategy of normalizing political violence serves the larger right-wing project to end America’s multiracial democracy (see Project 2025, Agenda 47, and the Red Caesar scenario). ..............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2024/06/17/unleashed-this-is-the-calm-before-the-storm/

10 replies

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Trump unleashed: This is the calm before the storm (Original Post) marmar Jun 2024 OP

Talking about hanging, shooting, and beating up people, is that locker room talk? Walleye Jun 2024 #1

Frothy frenzy of fact-less ranting Evolve Dammit Jun 2024 #2

If Biden used ANY of that rhetoric lonely bird Jun 2024 #3

MSM is owned by too few and is concentrating on encouraging more campaign ad spending. Hermit-The-Prog Jun 2024 #4

And we knew this would happen when Bush ok'd the PTB slightlv Jun 2024 #9

"I'm a great Christian.." czarjak Jun 2024 #5

Just guessing of course... rubbersole Jun 2024 #6

I think it will be the death knell... I'm pinning my hopes on that. slightlv Jun 2024 #10

Dehumanization and mass violence Kid Berwyn Jun 2024 #7

In his own deranged way, Trump is following Hitler's playbook, and it actually resonates with his cultists. Martin68 Jun 2024 #8

Walleye

(35,658 posts)

1. Talking about hanging, shooting, and beating up people, is that locker room talk?

Reply to marmar (Original post)

Mon Jun 17, 2024, 07:55 AM

Jun 2024

And it’s not like his rhetoric hasn’t led to violent acts already. I believe they are addicted to the violent ideations. And Trump doesn’t joke. Jokes are supposed to be funny

Evolve Dammit

(18,603 posts)

2. Frothy frenzy of fact-less ranting

Reply to marmar (Original post)

Mon Jun 17, 2024, 08:37 AM

Jun 2024

lonely bird

(1,884 posts)

3. If Biden used ANY of that rhetoric

Reply to marmar (Original post)

Mon Jun 17, 2024, 10:11 AM

Jun 2024

The MAGAts would shit themselves screaming about it.

Hermit-The-Prog

(36,586 posts)

4. MSM is owned by too few and is concentrating on encouraging more campaign ad spending.

Reply to marmar (Original post)

Mon Jun 17, 2024, 10:11 AM

Jun 2024

slightlv

(4,325 posts)

9. And we knew this would happen when Bush ok'd the PTB

Reply to Hermit-The-Prog (Reply #4)

Mon Jun 17, 2024, 12:01 PM

Jun 2024

the right to own as many and as varied a media as they desired. We fought against it then... fat lot of good it did. And here, I grew up thinking that the U.S. disallowed monopolies.

czarjak

(12,404 posts)

5. "I'm a great Christian.."

Reply to marmar (Original post)

Mon Jun 17, 2024, 10:13 AM

Jun 2024

THE Big Lie. God'll getcha for dat. I've read before. No faking!

rubbersole

(8,503 posts)

6. Just guessing of course...

Reply to marmar (Original post)

Mon Jun 17, 2024, 10:19 AM

Jun 2024

...there will be some random acts of horrific violence but nothing like tsf is trying to stir up. When you only have the fear of violence and election ratfuckery to gain political power, well, your "leadership skills" have failed and your desperation isn't something that attracts followers. This election will be the death knell of the gop (and they know it).

slightlv

(4,325 posts)

10. I think it will be the death knell... I'm pinning my hopes on that.

Reply to rubbersole (Reply #6)

Mon Jun 17, 2024, 12:06 PM

Jun 2024

But I don't think we won't see examples of Trump induced violence. In fact, I think it's already happening... but much of it we don't hear or read about until months later (if at all). I'm thinking of attacks on infrastructure. The last one I read about they did their shooting "just right" so that damage wouldn't be immediate. I've read at least two articles on violence against Pride events this past weekend. The unleashing chemicals is one I hadn't thought of before this. I guess I'm just not evil enough to think like them. But THAT worries me, because that's instituting chemical warfare... they already have the biological warfare down by refusing to wear masks in a pandemic, and refusing to cover their mouths when they cough or sneeze. They can get much dirtier than this. In fact, I told hubs that I think they're going on an internal campaign of "If you don't let us have this government and run it the way WE want to run it, we'll just burn it all down." Nothing I've seen so far has dissuaded me from this.

Kid Berwyn

(17,974 posts)

7. Dehumanization and mass violence

Reply to marmar (Original post)

Mon Jun 17, 2024, 10:28 AM

Jun 2024

A study of mental state language in Nazi propaganda (1927–1945)

Dehumanization is frequently cited as a precursor to mass violence, but quantitative support for this notion is scarce. The present work provides such support by examining the dehumanization of Jews in Nazi propaganda. Our linguistic analysis suggests that Jews were progressively denied the capacity for fundamentally human mental experiences leading up to the Holocaust. Given that the recognition of another’s mental experience promotes moral concern, these results are consistent with the theory that dehumanization facilitates violence by disengaging moral concern. However, after the onset of the Holocaust, our results suggest that Jews were attributed a greater capacity for agentic mental states. We speculate this may reflect a process of demonization in which Nazi propagandists portrayed the Jews as highly capable of planning and intentionality while nonetheless possessing a subhuman moral character. These suggestive results paint a nuanced portrait of the temporal dynamics of dehumanization during the Holocaust and provide impetus for further empirical scrutiny of dehumanization in ecologically valid contexts.

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9645591/

The agentic state is a psychological phenomenon in which an individual gives up their autonomy and moral responsibility to an authority figure. In this state, the individual perceives themselves as an agent of the authority figure and is willing to carry out their commands, even if it goes against their own moral code.

Source: https://studymind.co.uk/notes/agentic-state-and-legitimacy-of-authority/#:~:text=The%20agentic%20state%20is%20a,against%20their%20own%20moral%20code.

Martin68

(24,597 posts)

8. In his own deranged way, Trump is following Hitler's playbook, and it actually resonates with his cultists.

Reply to marmar (Original post)

Mon Jun 17, 2024, 11:46 AM

Jun 2024

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