If you want to understand the pathology of Donald Trump’s politics – the violent nihilism that is at the core of his identity in public life – this is it.
On Good Friday, Trump posted on his Truth Social media platform video of two pickup trucks with American flags and “Trump 2024” banners on Long Island, where he had attended the wake of a police officer gunned down in the line of duty. Trump wanted to make a point that crime is out of control and that he will restore “law and order” to the streets of America.
An image of a hog-tied US President Joe Biden, as seen in the video released on Donald Trump’s website.Credit: Truth Social
On the back of one of the trucks was an image of a bound President Joe Biden, hog-tied and lying on the bed of the truck.
Here we have a former president, a candidate for re-election as president, promoting an image of his opponent, the incumbent president of the United States, kidnapped and held prisoner. As history professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat said on X: “Trump is targeting the President of the United States.”
It appears mainstream US news media are reluctant to show the video and image for fear of inciting violence against the president – which is a crime. That is understandable, but for the rest of the world, it is important that we see just how outrageously far Trump is willing to go.
From Trump’s calls in his 2016 campaign against Hillary Clinton to “lock her up” to his Easter message for Biden to “tie him up”, violence has been a consistent theme in framing his enemies. Trump praised the Nazis who marched in Charlottesville. The hundreds of convicted insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in the most horrific assault on American democracy since the Civil War, are regularly cited by Trump as “hostages” – not criminals – who he intends to pardon should he return to the Oval Office.
Trump’s language of violence against his enemies is replete with Nazi talk of immigrants as “poisoning the blood” of the country, and there being “vermin” in the country to be extinguished. For the press, he emulates Stalin, consistently declaring the media are “the enemy of the people”.
Trump’s spokesman, Steven Cheung, pushed back hard. “That picture was on the back of a pickup truck that was travelling down the highway. Democrats and crazed lunatics have not only called for despicable violence against President Trump and his family, they are actually weaponising the justice system against him.”
When Trump parades a hog-tied Biden, his violent threat to democracy is beyond question
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31.03.2024
If you want to understand the pathology of Donald Trump’s politics – the violent nihilism that is at the core of his identity in public life – this is it.
On Good Friday, Trump posted on his Truth Social media platform video of two pickup trucks with American flags and “Trump 2024” banners on Long Island, where he had attended the wake of a police officer gunned down in the line of duty. Trump wanted to make a point that crime is out of control and that he will restore “law and order” to the streets of America.
An image of a hog-tied US President Joe Biden, as seen in the video released on Donald Trump’s........
© The Sydney Morning Herald
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