While people are rightly focusing on Trump’s consistency in his definition of “great people, I want to draw some attention to something else in this now deleted tweet.
“Corrupt Joe is shot.” “Joe is shot” and “Biden is shot” are all phrases Trump is trotting out. This is troubling for multiple reasons and should not be seen as an accident.
On June 22, he was interviewed by (surprise!) Fox News’ Raymond Arroyo and he used a phrase he has been trying to get traction with: Biden is shot.
It’s more than cruel. it is arguably stochastic terrorism — the willingness to harness other people’s mental instability into a “random” act of terrorism.
This has been in his playbook for a long time. This is meant to allow him plausible deniability when someone takes him up on his suggestion.
But let's dig deeper.
We have been told that formative to Trump’s psyche is early indoctrination to the teachings of Norman Vincent Peale. The “power of positive thinking”: imagine yourself into the future you want.
I can find him saying Biden is shot as far back as a February interview with Geraldo Rivera to multiple tweets this month.
Do we have any guess what Trump is positively thinking about? Or the future he envisions for himself?
(Also, when
Maggie Haberman hears is, is it a dog whistle?)
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h/t to BG