Trump lighting fuse to Election Day violence

It took 244 years for America to witness a presidential contender, indeed, the incumbent president himself, foment election chaos and violence. But it has been the Trump playbook for months since his defeat appeared inevitable with a fair, violence free vote. The first overt dog whistle to campaign chaos was his charge that mail in voting, necessitated by pandemic, would result in a fraudulent Democratic win. To his rabid, gun toting, white nationalist supporters, that is a not so subtle call to violence. They haven’t waited till Election Day. Thirteen have been arrested in a plot to kidnap and possibly kill the Michigan governor who, against Trump’s demands, enacted strong pandemic guidelines there. They took seriously his call to ‘liberate Michigan’. Rather than call out that criminality, Trump keeps stirring the cauldron of fear and loathing against Democratic governors refusing to expand pandemic death totals with irresponsible re-openings.

While we couldn’t see the deranged supporters planning gubernatorial kidnapping, we could view the crazed Trump pickup truck jockeys boxing in a Biden bus on a Texas highway. The only casualties were two Biden campaign events cancelled from the delayed bus. Check that. The real casualty was American democracy. Trump’s response? “I love Texas” over a tweet of the sickening video. When the FBI rightly announced an investigation, Trump tweeted “In my opinion, these patriots did nothing wrong. The FBI & Justice should be investigating the terrorists, anarchists, and agitators of ANTIFA.”

Watching this unfolding desecration of our democracy by a clearly defective human being, I’m reminded of Al Jolson’s quote to his rapturous audience: “You ain’t seen nothing yet”.