After reading Trump's polemic from last night at Mt. Rushmore, I can only conclude one thing:
Trump is seeking to incite violence against protestors. He is inflaming far right groups to strike out. We are in very dangerous territory.
Facebook is loaded right now with far-right types making actual threats to shoot protestors, and Trump feeds the fire by claiming in his Stephen Miller-written screeds that all protesters exercising their First Amendment rights are violent, left-wing mobs. Trump and Zuckerberg will have blood on their hands for what they are doing, Trump overtly, Zuckerberg by his gross inaction.
Republican senators, particularly those up for election this year, must be called out on Trump's incendiary words. Do they agree with Trump's depiction of protestors, of people seeking to right the wrongs of the past? These senators must be forced to answer. Joni Ernst, Thom Tillis, Cory Gardner, Martha McSally, Kelly Loeffler, David Perdue, Susan Collins, Lindsey Graham, John Cornyn and, yes, Mitch McConnell need to be forced on record about Trump's inflammatory rhetoric.
Because if something happens before the election -- and judging by the threats that Facebook is allowing to stand on its site, that is a very real possibility -- these senators will be co-conspirators in what Trump is fomenting unless they denounce his rhetoric. They are already co-conspirators in the damage Trump has wreaked upon this nation. But allowing Trump to foment this violence, especially in the run-up to the election, cannot stand.
I think it is clear that Trump and his campaign have something else in mind besides an electoral win in November. He is making no effort to expand his shrinking base. There is something else afoot, and his words make clear what that is. Dangerous times, indeed.