Not some sort of cheeky throwaway
Mary McCord on Trump’s call for insurrection:
Just a day after issuing guidance for re-opening America that clearly deferred decision-making to state officials — as it must under our Constitutional order — the president undercut his own guidance by calling for criminal acts against the governors for not opening fast enough.
Trump tweeted, “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” followed immediately by “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” and then “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!” This follows Wednesday’s demonstration in Michigan, in which armed protestors surrounded the state capitol building in Lansing chanting “Lock her up!” in reference to Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and “We will not comply,” in reference to her extension of the state’s coronavirus-related stay-at-home order. Much smaller and less-armed groups had on Thursday protested on the state capitol grounds in Richmond, Va., and outside the governor’s mansion in St. Paul, Minn.
“Liberate” — particularly when it’s declared by the chief executive of our republic — isn’t some sort of cheeky throwaway. Its definition is “to set at liberty,” specifically “to free (something, such as a country) from domination by a foreign power.” We historically associate it with the armed defeat of hostile forces during war, such as the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany’s control during World War II. Just over a year ago, Trump himself announced that “the United States has liberated all ISIS-controlled territory in Syria and Iraq.”
So what does “liberate” mean in this context? It means overthrow the people in power…the ones who were elected. It means nullify the elections with guns.
In that context, it’s not at all unreasonable to consider Trump’s tweets about “liberation” as at least tacit encouragement to citizens to take up arms against duly elected state officials of the party opposite his own, in response to sometimes unpopular but legally issued stay-at-home orders.
Legally issued stay home orders during a pandemic. It’s encouragement to overthrow the government in order to spread the pandemic among the population. Spreading the pandemic isn’t the goal, but it is the inevitable result. I don’t think the beefy guys with assault rifles know more about contagion than the CDC does.
Why are so few journalists zeroing in on the ‘second amendment’ line making it about guns? It’s annoying that so many are overlooking such a glaring warning sign.
Trump is shifting focus away from his 1A attacks on the press by getting the 2A warriors to make a big distraction for him. It’s one of those “hey, look over there” moves. Maybe he’s getting bored with shouting the reporters down or trying to discredit them like he’s been doing. Also the 2A is a more politically polarizing subject, and while he spews lies in his press campaigns about “all working together” and “bipartisan efforts”, he continues to work at dividing everyone and getting rid of the ones who are on (for his purposes) the wrong side. He’s a simpleton who doesn’t accept that there are moderates out there. He’s been spewing a lot of God talk too lately, but it’s hard to tell how full of shit he is about that, because God exists but moderates don’t? Meh. I’m skeptical about anything he says, and I think most people are, or at least they should be. Accepting his propaganda at face value is for people stupider than he is, but he’s good at insulting people’s intelligence, it’s part of his fascist clown act.
Is there an actual goal here other than scaring people and bringing disease back to shithole country?
I mean, I suppose it’s possible that stay at home orders might be rescinded, but probably not.
I genuinely cannot view the underlined portion without skepticism, at this point. A key part of Trump’s philosophy (specifically, the one part that isn’t “Trump is All, All Glory to Trump”) is tied into the notion of using, and even fomenting, chaos in order to weaken your opposition.
Putin, of course, is a master of this strategem, and has been employing it for over a decade. But Trump has long espoused similar ideas, even when he was just a crooked businessman. One reason he made sure never to get too obligated contractually is that he wanted to keep his partners uneasy and uncertain. He’s deployed the strategy deliberately with South Korea and Iran, too–pulling out of agreements, making sudden pivots. The idea is that since no one knows what’s going to come next, no one can outmaneuver him. (BTW, when I was a nine-year-old first learning how to play chess, I would sometimes beat opponents who were ever-so-slightly better than me by deploying that strategy, because they would be expecting me to make ‘sensible’ moves, and by just picking a piece at random, I could throw them for a loop. Of course, once the distinction in skill expands, it stops working, and the more experienced player wins every time–so like much of Trumpian ‘thinking’, it’s very much a juvenile strategy.)
It would not surprise me to find out that he WANTS for COVID to be more widespread, especially in states with Democratic governors who have been refusing to kiss his ass in public in order to get proper support from the federal government. After all, it would both make those governors seem less legitimate, and would force them to pay him more deference in order to get much-needed supplies.
As a case in point, note that he did NOT address supporters in Washington State, California or Oregon. There, he’s unlikely to succeed because the West Coast is now functioning without his support entirely–since they don’t need him at all, and are unlikely to even if he manages to induce a fresh break-out, he will not be able to exploit that situation for his own ends. For him, it’s better to keep the media off the West Coast alliance entirely, because that will keep people from being able to directly compare competence to his own ineptitude. (Note he also didn’t call upon supporters in NY state, where Cuomo’s been getting rave reviews for his handling of COVID.)