Forget About Changing Trumpers, Just Get Out The Vote
The words of depression era author, muckraker and political activist, Upton Sinclair, go a long way to explain the trump phenomenon and his messianic hold on followers.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it,” Sinclair said a century ago.
To paraphrase, it is useless to argue with a man whose opinion defines him and has been dictated to him.
As far as a strategy to defeat trump, the advice of lawyer, orator and populist politician William Jennings Bryan, is as relative today as it was 130 years ago.
“It is useless to argue with a man whose opinion is based upon a personal or pecuniary interest,” Bryan said, “The only way to deal with him is to outvote him.”
In other words, you will never change the mind of someone who owes his or her mindset and living to trump so stop beating your heads against the wall and get out and vote.
The spell that trump has conjured on his minions has only become stronger and more pernicious. Trump and the GOP are guilty of “stochastic terrorism,” a situation where people use overheated or irresponsible rhetoric to incite violence even if they never actually advocate violence.
The ex-president has accused the Democrats’ use of violent rhetoric as the cause for two recent attempted assassinations. That coming from a man who’s violent, hate-filled rhetoric is mind-numbing. He has consistently threatened to prosecute his perceived enemies and has called immigrants “vermin” and “terrorists” who are invading the nation by the “thousands and thousands.” He has claimed that Democrats want to murder babies shortly after birth and warned that the world will end in a nuclear conflagration if he is not reelected.
Trump self-righteously blamed the Democrats after the first assassination attempt and he is doing it again. He is using the violence to further his candidacy and relay the message that he is indestructible and will never give up. The fact is that he is just plain lucky.
On Monday, trump kept up his inflammatory comments on his Truth Social platform when he accused Harris of “KILLING BLACK AND HISPANIC HERITAGE.”
“Illegal Migrants” are “POURING INTO OUR COUNTRY” and “taking the JOBS away from Black and Hispanic people who have held them for years,” alleged Trump, repeating his earlier racist remarks about “Black jobs” being taken by immigrants. Economists have debunked his claims.
Trump has repeatedly questioned Harris’ racial identity and falsely suggested that Harris, whose parents are Jamaican and Indian immigrants, had happened “to turn Black” recently to boost her political career.
In the world according to trump, the Democrats are inciting violence when they say that trump is a “threat to democracy.” That is a fact and not fear mongering.
The one-term president claimed that Harris was courting violence when she repeated her campaign’s mantra, “We will never go back” to the oppressive days of the trump administration. That hardly fits the definition of stochastic terrorism.
Trump has accused Harris of plumbing the depths of shameful politicking when during the Oct. 7, 2020, vice presidential debate, she had the audacity to tell Vice President Mike Pence to stop interrupting because “I’m speaking.” Only in the mind of trump can these words be construed as violent.
The false equivalence and hypocrisy coming from trump and his followers remains beyond absurd.
Rather than blame political rhetoric for the attempted assassinations, trump and the rest ought to look at the elephant in the room. The facts are that 31 states allow citizens to walk around displaying a gun, in a nation with 20 million assault-style rifles. In February, trump promised at the NRA convention that if re-elected, “No one will lay a finger on your firearms,” and, boasted that while president he “did nothing” to curb guns.
Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, said the attempts to kill trump are evidence that “the left needs to tone down the rhetoric and needs to cut this crap out; somebody’s going to get hurt by it.”
The suspect in the first incident, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Pennsylvania, has been registered as a Republican but a motive in the shooting remained unclear.
Ryan Routh, 60, of North Carolina, the suspect in the second attempt, was described in a story in the Washington Post as “a man who spent much of his life in anonymity, only to seek purpose and attention in recent years in Ukraine, before seizing the most powerful spotlight possible in what authorities say was an apparent attempt to assassinate a presidential candidate.”
Vance said Republicans and Democrats can disagree and debate “but we cannot tell the American people that one candidate (trump) is a fascist and if he’s elected it is going to be the end of American democracy.”
As Vance knows, trump has frequently referred to Harris as a fascist whose election would mean the end of the U.S.
“She’s a Marxist, communist, fascist, socialist,” trump said at an Arizona rally on Thursday.
In August, trump told Virginia residents at a campaign rally that “We have a fascist person running who’s incompetent.” That month he told supporters in Arizona that the real schism in American politics is between patriots like himself with traditional values and “these far-left fascists led by Harris and her group.”
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., a former GOP presidential candidate and trump sycophant who hopes for a cabinet post under a new trump administration, accused Democrats of “potentially deadly” rhetoric that incited attempts to kill trump. Scott suggested, without a scintilla of evidence, that there may be a conspiracy behind the failed assassinations.
“We need to see it toned down, starting on the left,” Scott said on Fox News. “I’ve already heard it from our side. Every one of us wants to focus on the issues. But every single time we see another attempt against President Trump. You gotta ask yourself, is there a plot? Two assassination attempts in six weeks?”
Scott failed to mention that there were three possible attacks against Biden at the White House in past months. On May 5, a motorist died after crashing into a security barrier near the White House. Biden was at his home in Wilmington, Del., at the time of the crash.
In January, the police arrested a motorist after a vehicle crashed into a security barrier at the same intersection near the White House. Last May, a 19-year-old man crashed a rented U-Haul truck into White House security barriers. He told the authorities that he had been planning to kill Biden, who was at the White House at the time.
In December 2023, a drunk driver from Delaware crashed into Biden’s motorcade while the president was talking with reporters on the street in downtown Wilmington. The crash was considered accidental, and no one was injured.
Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., hopped on the unfounded, conspiracy bandwagon when he said, “This is disgraceful and bordering on conspiracy at this point. The Dems can’t run on policy, so they are running on demonizing @realDonaldTrump.”
Van Orden attended the January 6th “Stop the Steal” rally and was at the Capitol during the subsequent attack on the Capitol by trump supporters. During President Biden’s 2024 State of the Union address, Van Orden shouted “lies” after Biden criticized trump over trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Scott and other trump toadies have said they believe the two attacks on trump were related. They claim that security was lax in both cases and that both alleged shooters were politically opposed to trump. None of it is factual but one fact is that both suspects used semi-automatic rifles.
Trump is not the first president to survive two possible assassination attempts.
On Sept. 5, 1975, Charles Manson follower, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, tried to shoot President Gerald Ford. Seventeen days later, political radical Sara Jane Moore also tried to assassinate the president.
Fromme was about an arm’s length from Ford, when she pointed a pistol at him on the public grounds of the California State Capitol building. Luckly for Ford, Fromme had not chambered a round and the gun did not fire.
Moore was in the crowd across the street from the St. Francis Hotel, about 40 feet from Ford, when she fired a single shot at him with a revolver. She was using a gun which she bought in haste that same morning and as a result, she did not know that the sights were 6 inches off the point-of-impact at that distance, and as a result, she narrowly missed. She raised her arm again but Oliver Sipple, a former Marine, dove toward her and grabbed her arm, possibly saving Ford’s life.
There were never any links found between the two, other than that they were both fanatics. They also both used pistols as semi-automatic rifles were not available at the time.
“They are going to keep trying to kill Trump. This is only the beginning. This stops only when we win in November,” right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk wrote on X.
Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., called Democratic rhetoric “beyond evil.” Mast was among the 146 Republican members of congress who voted on Jan. 6, 2021, against certifying the election of President Biden.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., posted on X, “The radical left had continued to label Republicans and Americans who simply want to have a safe and prosperous country as ‘threats to democracy.’ This irresponsible rhetoric is causing people to get hurt.”
Luna was elected in 2022, with endorsements by trump and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. In a 2018 interview on Fox News, she compared Hillary Clinton to herpes. In May 2023, Luna sponsored a resolution to have Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a frequent trump critic, removed from Congress and fined $16 million.
In June 2022, Luna said that trump won the 202 election but was a victim of voter fraud. She wants all military aid to Ukraine to end. She is anti-abortion and said her position stemmed from having dissected a chicken egg in college and seeing the chick react to a scalpel blade.
“God was using that opportunity to really wake me up,” Luna said.
The unfounded assassination conspiracy got further backing from Martin County, Fla. Sheriff William Snyder. In a news conference after the capture of Routh, Snyder insinuated the possibility of a broader conspiracy,
“Is this guy part of a conspiracy?” Snyder said. “Is he a lone gunman? If it’s a lone gunman President Trump, is that much safer because we have him. But if he’s part of a conspiracy, then this whole thing really takes on a very ominous tone. “
Another law enforcement officer latching on to the latest Haitian bashing was Bruce Zuchowski, sheriff of Portage County, Ohio. Zuchowski, who is running for reelection, evidently hoped to intimidate Democrats as he posted on social media that people should send him the addresses of citizens with Kamala Harris yard signs.
“When people ask me…What’s gonna happen if the Flip — Flopping, Laughing Hyena Wins?? I say…write down all the addresses of the people who had her signs in their yards! Sooo…when the Illegal human “Locust” (which she supports!) Need places to live…We’ll already have the addresses of their New families…who supported their arrival!” the posts said.
Zuchowski is a 26-year veteran of the Ohio Starte Patrol and is the President and Chairman of the Ohio State Troopers Association.
Portage County Commissioner Tony Badalamenti criticized the post and resigned in protest from the county’s Republican Central Committee.
There was nothing subtle with the stochastic terrorism of the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire which posted and then deleted a tweet claiming “anyone who murders Kamala Harris would be American hero.” In retracting the tweet, the party said it “would never advocate for the assassination of a tyrannical President. That’s illegal. We were merely acknowledging how some members would react to one. These feelings are no different than how many leftists reacted and continue to react to assassination attempts on Donald Trump.”
The post was signed, “Til Valhalla,” apparently referring to the military expression of camaraderie, loyalty and respect to fellow marines.
Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X and a major trump backer, got in on the rumor mongering on Monday when his post questioned why trump has faced two apparent assassination attempts in recent months while Biden and Harris have not encountered any. Musk said the post was a joke and that he removed it after initially resisting numerous calls Sunday night to do so.
Musk was at it again on Wednesday when he shared claims that were later debunked that explosives were found in a car near the site of trump’s upcoming rally on Long Island, New York. The Nassau County Police Department released an official statement calling the claims “unfounded.”
The rumor apparently originated with a story in the Daily Mail tabloid, titled, “Cops ‘find explosives’ in car near Trump rally on Long Island.” The Mail later corrected the headline to debunk the claims and explained the error.
In his post, Musk said, “BOMB: The Democrat incitement of political violence against President Trump has escalated in the two days following the second attempt on his life. Thanks to a bomb-sniffing dog working in conjunction with the Secret Service a third attempt on Trump’s life was thwarted, this time in Long Island, New York.”
Musk shared the inaccurate news with the simple comment, “Wow.”
Trump caused a firestorm of bigoted reactions after he claimed falsely that Haitian immigrants were stealing and eating neighbors’ cats and dogs and that Springfield, Ohio, had been destroyed by the immigrants. Both claims have been totally disproven but that did not deter Vance from repeating them.
The Haitian immigrants targeted by trump are in the United States legally under Temporary Protected Status . They pay taxes, own property, and work.
But Vance said he would not stop inventing stories.
“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” Vance said, adding that he was “creating the American media focusing on it.”
Over the past five years, Springfield’s Haitian population has grown from 12,000 to 15,000 as the migrants fled chaos in their country for the hope of jobs.
Since trump began spreading the Haitian lies, Springfield has received scores of terroristic threats against schools and government facilities.
Immediately capitalizing on Trump’s and Vance’s lies about immigrants was Bernie Moreno, a far right GOP candidate for Senate in Ohio. Moreno used the issue to call for revocation of the protected status of legal Haitian migrants in Springfield and for them to be deported back to their violence-riven country.
Moreno, a Cleveland car dealer, is challenging Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. He explained how he believes that Brown and Harris, not trump and Vance, have caused the problems.
“What’s happened is that Sherrod Brown and Kamala Harris have waved the magic wand, corrupted our immigration system and shielded them through Temporary Protected Status and asylum — two loopholes in our immigration system that were corrupted by corrupt politicians,” Moreno said.
Moreno’s spokeswoman, Reagan McCarthy, mimicked the party line.
“It is vile that the liberal media is blaming Republicans for these threats in Springfield — with no evidence — when a leftwing lunatic who echoed talking points from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris attempted to assassinate President Trump just yesterday,” McCarthy said in an email.
In addition to bomb threats leveled at schools, government buildings and health care facilities, officials and staffers have been threatened. A total of 21 public buildings were “placed on lockdown, evacuated, closed, or searched at some point over the last week due to threats.”
Brown isn’t part of the executive branch and the Department of Homeland Security granted temporary protected status.
Moreno has claimed that immigrants have “destroyed” Ohio cities. Such rhetoric, along with claims of an immigrant “invasion” and the “great replacement theory” have helped motivate racist massacres over the past six years.
In 2023, Moreno settled over a dozen wage theft lawsuits prior to launching his U.S. Senate campaign. He was ordered to pay over $400,000 to two former employees. He was rebuked by a state judge for shredding documents potentially related to the case.[17]
Moreno opposes abortion, describing himself in a 2022 interview as “Absolute pro-life. No exceptions” He has called for an end to U.S. support for Ukraine in the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War. After the 2020 presidential election, Moreno said that the election had been “stolen.”
In 2023, Moreno said that reparations should be paid to the descendants of Civil War soldiers who helped to free slaves.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost needed no facts as he repeated rumors that Black immigrants in Springfield have been killing and eating geese.
An armed neo-Nazi group marched through the city last month, and over the weekend, Ku Klux Klan fliers appeared in Springfield neighborhoods, saying, “Foreigners and Haitians Out.”
Public officials have received death threats, and Mayor Rob Rue, a Republican, blamed trump and Vance for the strife.