A long post, but timely: Ask any MAGA type what will happen if Trump is convicted
in any of his four criminal forthcoming trials and the answer is almost always the same:
Civil War.
This fine article below from THE HILL along with my research are
timely today as at any time in our fragile history with this headline:
“Republicans just
can’t stop calling for civil war”
That headline holds true whether you speak to rank-and-file
Republican voters, local elected officials, MAGA types (mostly), or even from
the top down among former national GOP leaders. It’s also an indication that
the right-wing politics of grievance is spiraling dangerously out of control.
Examples:
1. GA State Sen. Colton Moore warned podcaster Steve Bannon that any prosecution of Trump would lead to a likely civil war saying: “I don’t want to have to draw my rifle.”
Moore also seemed to imply
that GA state troopers would be willing participants in any effort to bust
Trump out of jail. That last bit may be fantastical thinking on Moore’s part,
but he’s hardly alone.
2. Former GA gubernatorial candidate Kandiss Taylor lent her
voice to the chorus of war cries, describing Trump’s indictments as “treason
and a hijacking of our country while telling podcaster William Wallis:
“This is war, and I hope and pray it gets resolves before we use guns …we’re at
war right now, a war for our freedom.”
Moore and Taylor are
admittedly fringe figures — At the same time, GA GOP Gov. Brian Kemp unceremoniously rejected Moore’s
call to remove Fulton County DA Fani Willis from office, while Taylor finished
a distant last place in
her party primary. But the right’s calls to violence aren’t just coming from
local politicians in and around Atlanta.
3. Former Alaska GOP Gov. Sarah Palin, who also in 2008 was the GOP’s vice presidential standard-bearer for the late Sen. John McCain, assured Newsmax’s Eric Bolling: “That a civil war is going to happen if prosecutors don’t drop all charges against Trump. Those who are conducting this travesty and creating this two-tier system of justice. We’re not going to keep putting up with this. I like that you suggested that we need to get angry. We need to rise up and take our country back.”
Some profess that
comments such as those above are not serious but only the speakers voicing their
First Amendment right of Free Speech. But keep in mind what the categories of
unprotected speech only include: Obscenity, child pornography,
defamatory speech, false advertising, fighting words, and a true
threat.”
“True threat” was further
clarified and defined on June 27, 2023, in the USSC case of Counterman v.
Colorado in this simple statement: “Speech when it leaves the bounds of the
First Amendment’s protection becomes a true threat.”
The Counterman case from a legal defense site:
Billy Counterman was charged under Colorado Rev. Stat. §18–3–602(1)(c), a
statute against stalking, for repeatedly sending unwanted Facebook messages to
a local female musician.
With his messages ranging
from affectionate to angry, and violent, the musician began to fear for her
safety, cancelling gigs, and outings with her friends. Eventually, she chose to
press charges against Counterman.
Counterman then moved to dismiss the charge, arguing that his statements “were not true threats” and were thus a protected form of speech. When the case went to trial, the only evidence the State of Colorado presented were Counterman’s Facebook messages to the musician.
The State sufficiently
proved with this evidence that a reasonable, objective person would view the
messages as threatening.
However, another question
arose as his case moved through the appellate courts: “Can a statement
be a true threat if the speaker did not intend to threaten?”
The case made it all the
way to the Supreme which decided that the First
Amendment: “Requires proof that the defendant had some subjective understanding
of the threatening nature of his statements” (Counterman v. Colorado (2023).
Counterman then argued that he is mentally ill, and
did not intend for his messages to cause fear. This does not mean that
individuals’ statements are immediately protected under the First Amendment if
they didn’t maliciously intend to cause fear, though.
The Supreme Court elaborated that: “A mental state of recklessness is sufficient for a statement which would cause a reasonable person to fear bodily harm to be considered a true threat.”
Then the high court added: “The prosecution “must show that the defendant consciously disregarded a substantial risk that his communications would be viewed as threatening violence” (Counterman v. Colorado (2023).
Therefore, if the prosecution can
prove that an individual’s statement would cause a reasonable person fear and
that the individual either intended to cause fear or disregarded the risk that
the statement could be perceived as a threat, that individual can be criminally
charged.
Case in point as outlined above clearly meant that. It
wouldn’t be hard to wave away the right’s growing calls for violence as more of
the extremist political theater they’ve become so expert in producing.
But Republicans are doing more than just daydreaming about revenge: Their increasingly specific urgings toward violence always include a clear call to arms for the MAGA movement. Their message isn’t subtle: “Have your guns ready, because the shooting could start at any moment.”
As a nation, we would be foolish to ignore the threats both implicit and explicit in the right’s new civil war messaging. The fact is, violent and goading threats from our political leaders have a nasty habit of inciting action in those who take all of that hateful rhetoric as gospel.
The
D.C. court system is currently jammed full of them following
the events of and after January 6, 2001. Sentencing continues now for those whose
“True threats turned into violent acts” on that fateful day that we all saw
live on TV. Now, justice is being served.
For example: Just before this past Labor Day holiday, a federal judge sentenced Proud Boys propagandist Joe Biggs to 17 years in prison for his actions on January 6. In online posts from November 2020 presented by the prosecution, Biggs openly called for civil war — and echoed many of the extreme statements Republican leaders are still making almost daily on a vast array of right-wing news outlets.
Then in a jailhouse phone call to conspiracy
theorist Alex Jones, Biggs said he believed Trump would pardon him when
the former president is rightfully restored to power.
Then on September 5, the ex-Proud
Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years for January 6 – and he was
not even in DC but was the #1 planner of the event – surely a “true threat” as
the court ruled in his trial.
For his part, even Trump can’t resist making thinly veiled references to the possible
necessity of civil conflict.
Recently, ousted Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, asked Trump if he believed the nation was headed toward civil war.
Trump answered the question by remarking on the “tremendous
passion and love” evident in the mob that attacked the Nation's Capitol on January
6, and lamented that the media only reported the attack negatively.
Trump waxed poetically: “People in that crowd said it was the most beautiful day they had ever experienced. I’ve never seen simultaneously so much hatred from those people for what they’ve done to our country.”
By “they” Trump meant the elected officials who had committed to carrying out a lawful certification of the 2020 electoral vote.
In Trump’s telling, the anger of the mob is not only justified but admirable.
He also warned that, properly signaled, that pro-Trump
paramilitary could find its way onto the streets again as he said to Carlson: “There’s
a level of passion that I’ve never seen, there’s a level of hatred that I’ve
never seen. That’s probably a bad combination.”
Just like anyone else, the Republicans clamoring for civil
war are perfectly free to use their free speech rights to the fullest. But as
our nation further polarizes into extremes that view each other not just as
opponents but as mortal threats to democracy, it’s worth asking whether it’s
responsible or patriotic to build a political platform around urging
conservatives into open violence against the state. They’ve proven their
willingness to follow those orders once.
No politician who claims to love this country should be
encouraging a violent repeat of one of the republic’s darkest moments.
My 2 Cents: That we see and hear now all over again and as
stated above and across GOP la-la land from Trump on down the has to be taken
seriously as pointed above to be a “true threat” and not nearly his or their
fright of free speech … it certainly is not.
Do the research and see for yourself … their words we hear and see now and in the past and will witness in the future will have serious and potentially deadly consequences for the country.
I strongly believe that and their words and actions must be taken
seriously as presented in those quoted above in the article and examples cited.
Thanks for stopping by.
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