October 3, 2023 | Reading Time: 3 minutes
Trump’s climate of intimidation
And it’s getting ridiculous, writes Lindsay Beyerstein.
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Federal prosecutors are pushing for a gag order for Donald Trump, as he continues to threaten and intimidate. Clearly, something has to be done. The former president is trying yet again to assemble a mob to intimidate his legal and political enemies.
Prosecutors pointed to a recent social media post in which Trump declared that Gen. Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, deserved to be executed for calling Milley’s counterpart in China to assure that the US had no plans to attack China in the dying days of the Trump presidency.
Trump homunculus US Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona followed suit, asserting a “better society” would have hanged the “strange, sodomy-promoting” Gen. Milley. Two years ago, Gosar was censured for posting an animated clip in which his avatar killed US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York with a sword and attacked President Joe Biden.
Trump is winding up his followers. Last week, he made a big show of buying a gun at a campaign event. His campaign initially confirmed the purchase, but later denied it. It’s a separate federal crime for a person under federal criminal indictment to purchase a firearm.
Trump and Gosar are walking a fine line between intimidation and incitement. Talking about how a person deserves a violent death in the abstract, or after due process, provides a sliver of deniability while delivering an unmistakable message. This is a favorite tactic of anti-vax cranks like Naomi Wolf, who gleefully accuse doctors of genocide and fantasize about how their enemies will be put to death following Nuremberg 2.0, an imaginary re-run of the war crime trials.
Trump is winding up his followers. Last week, he made a big show of buying a gun at a campaign event. His campaign initially confirmed the purchase, but later denied it. It’s a separate federal crime for a person under federal criminal indictment to purchase a firearm.
Violent posturing can have real-life consequences, as it did in the run-up to the J6 insurrection when Trump ordered the Proud Boys to stand back and stand by. Let’s not forget that a gunman shot up an FBI office because he was mad about the federal raid on Mar-a-Lago that netted so many classified documents.
Threats against the courts are up. The US Marshall’s Service – which protects judges, prosecutors and court staff – received 3,706 reports of threats and inappropriate communications in 2022, a threefold increase over 2015. A Texas woman was recently arrested for threatening to kill the judge who will preside over one of Trump’s cases. In August, grand jurors in Trump’s Georgia case had their names, photos, and social media profiles shared on far-right websites. Conspiracy theories continue to inspire threats against election workers, some of whom have gotten PTSD on the job. More than a dozen people have been charged with threats against election workers, thanks to the work of a special unit within the Department of Justice.
An Indiana weatherman recently resigned citing a serious death threat and other harassment over his coverage of climate change. Last week, the leader of a white supremacist group pleaded guilty in federal court for threatening a journalist. Fifteen percent of Covid scientists who responded to a poll conducted by Nature reported receiving death threats after media appearances. Recently, Yoel Roth, the former head of security for Twitter, blamed Elon Musk for a campaign of death threats so severe that he had to sell his house and move.
It’s getting ridiculous. The software company Unity canceled a town hall event and closed its offices following a barrage of death threats in response to an unpopular fee increase. Travis Kelce’s ex-girlfriend says she’s getting death threats from Taylor Swift fans because she called the tight-end a cheater and warned that he might not be faithful to the pop princess.
Donald Trump is using threats to intimidate those who seek to hold him accountable. He’s creating a climate in which all kinds of people feel empowered to vent their rage by threatening their ideological opponents.
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Lindsay Beyerstein covers legal affairs, health care and politics for the Editorial Board. An award-winning documentary filmmaker, she’s a judge for the Sidney Hillman Foundation. Find her @beyerstein.
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