Back in October 2021, I made a prediction. (I called it a speculation.)
Jonathan Karl was hyping his newly released book on Trump. As a reminder, at this time in the media, while the country was still coming to grips with the aftermath of such a brazen attack on the Capitol, it was rather unheard of to come across anyone defending the breach. In hindsight, I know it’s probably hard to imagine now, to put yourself back in that time period. But when this happened, it shocked me into a realization.
According to Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show, a new book by Jonathan Karl, Donald Trump referenced January 6 in a way that, to some, sounded like bragging. Specifically, he bragged about the size of the crowd.
When I saw a partial clip of his rally from last weekend, observing his tone and rhetoric, I was struck by what seemed a lightning-bolt realization.
He’s running on the insurrection.
Not only is he running on it, from his word choices and with his obvious tone and facial expression of glee, he arranged the insurrection for just that. He staged January 6.
His message on Twitter was a casting call.
This is why his minions are in such paroxysms that they are actually being sent to jail. Why they keep saying, “Trump called us here.” “We were following orders.” Not that there was a conspiracy here—just that, in their minds, they probably thought everyone else knew that the riot was not really an insurrection.
It was all supposed to be fun and games. Until someone got shot. Now he’s running on that, too.
Talk me down! I invited at the end of the post. Now, a fair number of responses thought I was late to the realization of the seriousness of Trump’s threat to the nation, which was not the point I was attempting to make. As I clarified in a comment, I meant that he had deliberately drawn those people there in order to make footage that he could use in his upcoming campaign.
For all intents and purposes, the prediction was unprovable. I had no evidence whatsoever, other than what could be called a thunderclap, that deep sense of aligning that happens when you really deeply realize something. Short of some staffer emerging with memoranda bearing DJT’s signature, what proof could there possibly be?
Trump himself, at his weekend rally in Waco, proved me right, as right as can ever be found in this instance. How so? Because he was the one who chose to feature footage from the insurrection during his kickoff rally for his 2024 campaign. And he did it after a bullhorn announcement telling the crowd to place their hands over their hearts (a gesture reserved for the national anthem and Pledge of Allegiance) while they listened to a musical selection by the Jan 6 “choir.”
Erich Fromm, in The Heart of Man (where he coined the term ‘malignant narcissism’), described a facet of what he called the love of death: “It is expressed in gestures more than in ideas, in the tone of voice more than in words.” Trump made those gestures and spoke with just such a tone of voice.
I don’t have a crystal ball. I don’t know how this story ends.
What I do know is that, after watching two videos this afternoon, by the time I finished the second, I did indeed get a sense. Not tingly like a spidey-sense. More of a dread, like when you’re driving on the freeway and you realize a wasp is in the cabin with you. It’s already a high-stakes situation and now there’s an added element of danger, an immediate, urgent threat that can’t be set aside.
I’d already posted a diary today, one that I originally wrote at two in the morning. But this afternoon, I felt it incumbent to watch a video on the Step Back channel (hosted/narrated by Tristan Johnson, a historian), which specifically dealt with Waco and Ruby Ridge all in one. Considering that my diary also joined those two incidents, Tristan’s video seemed on-point.
What he describes is almost a step-by-step tour of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s of how we got to our current moment. He lists exactly how significant both Ruby Ridge and Waco were (and are) to the broader extremist movement, talking about how the ridiculous and outlandish conspiracy theories about ZOG and white genocide have morphed into talk about “globalists” and QAnon fantasies. He wraps his video leading directly into his next, all about Timothy McVeigh and his attack on the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City in 1995.
But right after that I came across Jesse Dollemore’s take on Donald Trump’s speech. Dollemore, a YouTube influencer, has a very particular view about white supremacists. He was raised in that culture (though obviously he has broken away), so he’s criticizing it from an embedded perspective. So when he warns us about the import of Trump’s words, he’s sounding that alarm as someone who knows how these extremists think and what their values are, because he lived them.
It was watching his video that I got the sensation, the astonishment. Mind you, this was not fear. It was cold realization. We really are in uncharted territory.
Now, I don’t have the power to change what is happening on the national stage. My small bit of influence is here, in these opinions that I offer at Daily Kos. That said, I generally hold back on prescriptions as far as this case goes because I don’t want to even feel like I’m meddling in the process. Just today, I was stressing the need for us, as liberals, to follow the strictures of the law and let the process play out. Going by the book is really important to me in this instance.
Still, with the unverbalized yet clearly communicated threat Trump directed against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in a tweet last week, the fact that no official move has been taken to hold Mr. Trump—a private citizen!—accountable for the assault is due to embolden even more responses like that asshat who sent the nontoxic white powder to Bragg’s office.
This is terror; and Trump, malignant narcissist that he is, surely gains a warm sense of pleasure seeing his lackeys respond to his call. Must feel like brandy slipping into his stomach.
He’s enjoying this.
Absent an actual security threat that would be triggered by moving against Trump at this time, the Justice Department must seriously consider not only taking Mr. Trump into custody for this crime (he’s criming in plain sight) but also the cost of not arresting him and how much worse that could be in the future. The near future.
The thing to keep in mind, when comparing this time to the early- to mid-’90s, when Ruby Ridge and Waco happened, was that there was no Fox News around. There was none of this RW media infrastructure. Right now, Trump is buoyed by all of this scaffolding of support.
The arrest needs to come sooner than later. If the Justice Department doesn’t move soon, it will may have fewer moves at its disposal in the future.
But hey! Talk me down.