So it’s done: a monster majority of Republican primary voters have judged that the person best suited to embody their values and their hopes to lead their party to victory and to make America great again is Donald Trump. Certainly, he was found guilty of financial embezzlement, sexual assault and defamation, he is accused of having stolen and disseminated secret documents, of having attempted to bribe electoral agents (several of his co-defendants have pleaded guilty) and of having fomented a coup d’état, which fortunately failed. But, you will tell me, no one is perfect.
Now that Trump has returned to his party and placed his daughter-in-law Lara Trump as co-leader, who invites all his detractors to jump ship, it is useful to recall the symbolism he chose for the starting point of his 2024 campaign Its first assembly was organized in Texas, in the city of Waco, made famous in 1993 by an anti-state sect armed to the teeth. After 51 days of resistance to any arrest by the FBI, the confrontation resulted in the death of 82 members of the sect, including 25 children, and four federal agents.
What aspect of this event did Trump want to celebrate? The doubt was lifted when the American national anthem was sung during the assembly by a choir made up of participants in the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol, broadcast from their prison. Trump had his hand on his heart as scenes of the attempted coup played on the big screen. Trump has promised, if elected, to pardon them all. He used to call them “patriots”, now he says they are “hostages”.
Trump’s celebration of violence is not anecdotal. It’s a strong theme. During his first campaign, he invited members of his assembly to strike (punch) a rowdy person. He criticized the police for being too soft during arrests. During his mandate, he asked his Secretary of Defense why we could not disperse demonstrators gathered in front of the White House by shooting them in the legs with live ammunition. Recently, he announced that under his presidency, a theft suspect who leaves a business should expect to be executed on the spot.
The political effectiveness of violence is increased tenfold not by the blows actually delivered, but by the fear of receiving them. As tongues loosen and testimonies appear, we begin to appreciate the importance of this fear in the political decisions of Republican elected officials.
She was at work in the Senate, shortly after the events of January 6, when it was necessary to decide whether or not to vote for the impeachment of Donald Trump. Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican critical of the ex-president, told his biographer that one of his Republican colleagues was considering voting for impeachment, as he himself was preparing to do. All it took was two Republican senators joining the vote for Trump to be impeached. The Senate could have subsequently banned him from running for president again. Romney reports a discussion where several Republican senators said they feared for their safety and that of their children. The uncertain senator was thus convinced not to run this risk. Trump won 52 to 48.
Dissident Republican Liz Cheney reports that there were identical conversations in the House of Representatives. “Deputies told me they feared for their safety, and in some cases, their lives. » One of the House Republicans who voted for impeachment, Peter Meijer, bought a bulletproof vest the next day and changed his usual commute. Another, when informed that he and his family would, after this vote, now be subject to increased police protection given the level of threat, chose not to run again.
Fear also played a role in states where prominent Republicans signed letters supporting the false thesis of the stolen election. In Pennsylvania, a Republican leader, Kim Ward, explained it this way: “If I had said ‘I refuse,’ my residence would have been destroyed that evening. »
Former American Secretary of Labor and academic Robert Reich, whom I thank for having listed these testimonies on his Substack page, says he asked a friend, a former Republican senator, why moderate elected officials like him had remained silent on the subject of abuses. of Trump. “After a pause, he said to me: ‘Some of his supporters are crazy [nuts], and they are armed.” I laughed, thinking he was joking. He was serious. “They are like the mafia, they are dangerous,” he added, “and Trump is their godfather.” »
The sponsor’s messages come across easily. Last August, furious with the prosecutors and judges who forced him to answer for his actions in court, he wrote on his social network, in capitals: “IF YOU TARGET ME, I WILL TARGET YOU” (“ IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU “). The next day, one of his judges received a message on his voicemail: “If Trump is not elected in 2024, we will come and kill you. » Two days later, a prosecutor and a sheriff linked to one of his trials received a similar message. And during the recent election for the presidency of the House of Representatives, one of the deputies refusing to support Trump’s candidate made public the obscene telephone message received by his partner and threatening her with harassment if he refused to tidy.
The recently united Kansas Republicans got the message. They provided their activists with a rubber bust of Joe Biden so that they could publicly have fun punching and kicking him. This is promising.