“I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump–I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough—until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad.”
This is what Donald Trump said when asked in a Breitbart News interview Thursday about House Democrats’ investigation into his myriad perfidious behavior.
Around that time, 28-year-old Brenton Tarrant was live-streaming his attacks on two Christchurch, New Zealand mosques that left 49 worshipers dead.
The gunman also released online a 74-page manifesto in which he describes himself as a “regular white man from a regular family” who “decided to take a stand to ensure a future for my people,” adding he used to be “a communist, then an anarchist and finally a libertarian before coming to be an eco-fascist.”
It includes the phrase popular among white supremacists, “We must secure an existence for our people and a future for white children.”
He added he wanted his attacks to send the message “Nowhere in the world is safe.”
He claimed inspiration from other far-right white nationalist attackers, like Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in a 2011 attack in Norway, for “focused violence” to create a “white homeland.”
His weapons displayed white-supremacist symbols, including the name of a Swedish child killed in a 2017 attack; the name Alexandre Bissonnette, a Canadian far-right extremist guilty of killing worshipers in a 2017 attack on a Canadian mosque; and that of a man extolled for defeating Muslims in an eighth-century battle.
He also praised Donald Trump, whom he hailed as “a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose,” going on to discuss “threats to the electoral college,” and his desire to “end the melting pot” by “balkanizing” the United States “along political, cultural and, most importantly, racial lines.”
This is significant, particularly when we consider Trump’s response.
Of course he tweeted a benign “My warmest sympathy and best wishes.”
There was no word about the shooter or his motives, nor was there disavowal.
Later during a press conference, however, Trump managed to drift into exactly the same style rhetoric as the mosque attacker and other white supremacists:
“I have to in particular thank the Republican strong wonderful people, are the Republican senators that were on our side and on the side of border security, and on the side of doing what they have to, to keep our nation safe. They were very courageous yesterday [defending the national emergency] and appreciate that very much. Congress’ vote to deny the crisis on the southern border is a vote against reality, it’s against reality. It is a tremendous national emergency. It is a tremendous crisis. Last month more than 76,000 illegal migrants arrived at our border. We’re on track for a million illegal aliens to rush our borders. People hate the word invasion but that’s what it is. It’s an invasion of drugs and criminals and people, we have no idea of who they are but we capture them because border security is so good. But they’re put in a very bad position. And we’re bursting at the seams.”
But that’s not all.
When a reporter asked Trump “Do you see, today, white nationalism as a rising threat around the world?” the president replied:
“I don’t really. I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems. I guess if you look at what happened in New Zealand, perhaps that’s the case. I don’t know enough about it yet. They’re just learning about the person and the people involved. But it’s certainly a terrible thing. Terrible thing.”
That “small group of people” is also the “very fine people” Trump cited in a press conference after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va. in August 2017 at which a white supremacist ran down civil rights protester, 32-year-old Heather Heyer, with his car.
Malcolm Nance, retired Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Agency (NSA) agent, counter-intelligence expert, and author of the books The Plot to Hack America: How Putin’s Cyberspies and WikiLeaks Tried to Steal the 2016 Election and The Plot to Destroy Democracy: How Putin and His Spies Are Undermining America and Dismantling the West, told MSNBC‘s Joy Reid:
“The president is pushing this. The president is their champion. And you know what, to be quite honest, he needs the sierra tango foxtrot uniform. And if he doesn’t understand what that means, he needs to turn to the right, ask his defense attache or the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. He is stoking violence not just in United States but around the world.”
A few weeks ago, neo-Nazi U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant, Christopher Paul Hasson, compiled a spreadsheet of targeted lawmakers Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Maxine Waters, and Sheila Jackson Lee; Sens. Richard Blumenthal, Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Tim Kaine, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; MSNBC anchors Joe Scarborough, Chris Hayes, and Ari Melber; CNN anchors Don Lemon, Chris Cuomo, and Van Jones; former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke; African American activist and author Angela Davis; former Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta; and the Democratic Socialists of America.
Hasson, like Brenton Tarrant, was well-versed in Norwegian white nationalist Anders Breivik’s ideology.
His online history shows him referring to a “liberalist/globalist ideology” destroying white Americans and conspiracies by “((((People)))),” an internet styling the far right uses to refer to Jewish individuals.
Trump refers to his political opponents as “globalists” who “want the globe to do well, frankly, not caring about our country.”
Those “globalists,” according to Trump, support “caravans” of “unknown Middle Easterners” en route from Central America to wreak havoc on American sovereignty.
When it comes to elections, says Trump, the “globalists” depend on millions of non-American “illegals” showing up in droves to vote.
Trump suggested Barack Obama “founded” Isis.
He told “second amendment people” they might be able to take care of Hillary Clinton.
He extolled Montana Republican congressman Greg Gianforte for body-slamming Guardian political reporter Ben Jacobs in May 2017 for asking a question Gianforte didn’t appreciate.
There is even reason to believe adult film actress Stormy Daniels’ arrest in Columbus, Ohio this summer was politically motivated due to Daniels’ outspoken criticism of the president.
And although there may not be any connection between Trump and the gunman who opened fire on a Pittsburgh synagogue in October, killing 11 and wounding six, Andrew Gawthorpe writes in The Guardian:
“It is no surprise that this febrile atmosphere, in which any lie can be justified if it paints the president’s opponents as traitors, would lead to violence.”
When commenting about the synagogue shooting, Trump, predictably, stated:
“If they had protection inside the results would have been far better. If they had some kind of a protection inside the temple, maybe it would have been a much different situation.”
This is what we can expect from a man identified himself as a “nationalist,” encouraging former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke to tweet:
“Trump Embraces Nationalism in a Massive JamPacked 99.9 % White Venue in Houston! Zio Journalists asked him if this is White Nationalism! Of course fundamentally it is as, there is no ethnic or racial group in America more Nationalist than White Americans… So What’s the Problem?”
No, Trump is not outright calling for journalists and his political opponents to be harmed and/or killed. He is not overtly calling for Muslims, African Americans, LGBTQ Americans, immigrants (mostly dark-skinned ones), or Democrats to be maimed.
But over the past several years, his stochastic terrorism has successfully incited ardent supporters to fill in the blanks.
Trump too bears responsibility for the New Zealand mosque attack.
He is fomenting domestic terrorism around the world.
And he has the world’s blood on his hands.
Image credit: Pixabay
