Yes, I agree, Trump has reached the point of stochastic terrorism.
His statement had an element of plausible deniability to it, but Wolf Blitzer pretty well checkmated Trump’s spokesperson on that: Trump couldn't have meant “at the ballot box” because if HRC is nominating Justices, she’s already in the White House.
In the minds of a certain number of people, what he said will be interpreted solely on the basis of its most emotionally-provocative elements, and the interpretation will be “he said it’s OK.” Trump is rapidly becoming a one-man jobs program for FBI, DOJ, US Secret Service, and US Marshals, all of whom have roles in detecting, investigating, arresting, and prosecuting violent actors.
But there’s more than just wink-nudging assassination: his entire demeanor as well as many of the things he’s said, give a kind of permission for pervasive low-level violence, such as punching someone in an argument. This is the kind of overtly harmful demagoguery we normally associate with the KKK and other terrorist groups. (bold added by praesepe)
Thanks for the links, it’s interesting to see how my theory* has gotten around. I wouldn’t mind having email addresses for these folks so I can let them know I’m reachable for Q&A if they’re interested. (I don’t do Twitter etc., so yeah I need actual email addresses.) Or perhaps I should post a public email address where anyone interested can write.
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*Theory: Strictly speaking it’s not a “theory” as that term is used in the hard sciences, to mean an overarching explanation of a set of natural phenomena that are accessible to testable hypotheses. Clearly it’s not testable in any practical or morally-acceptable sense. In this context the word “theory” is used as it applies in journalism and in the law, as a logical explanation for a set of observables, e.g. “the theory of the crime” and so on.