Former President Donald Trump has used social media and Republican Party fundraisers to incite violence against prosecutors and political enemies in response to four felony charges unveiled last week. Federal prosecutors have filed a motion to prevent Trump from speaking publicly about discovery evidence in the case until the trial begins, citing his history of attacking witnesses and others involved in legal matters against him. The unprecedented crisis and breakdown of the US political system is expressed in the character and frequency of Trump’s threats, as well as the response of the political establishment in both parties.
In the face of four felony charges unveiled last Thursday which detail some of his illegal efforts to overthrow the 2020 election and install himself as president-dictator, ex-president Donald Trump has responded with an avalanche of fascistic rhetoric aimed at instigating violence against prosecutors and his political enemies.
Former President Donald Trump speaks at the 56th annual Silver Elephant Gala in Columbia, South Carolina, Saturday, August 5, 2023.
In a Truth Social post Friday night, Trump promised to exact retribution against anyone who cooperates in the ongoing investigations against him, writing, “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”
After Trump posted his threats appealing to the far-right militia elements that stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, federal prosecutors filed a motion with District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who is overseeing the federal case, seeking a protective order to prevent Trump from speaking publicly about discovery evidence in the case until the trial begins.
In their motion, prosecutors noted that it was “particularly important” that Trump and his legal team not be able to publicly post information about witnesses and their evidence against Trump because the former president has frequently attacked “witnesses, judges, attorneys, and others associated with legal matters pending against him.”
In their filing, prosecutors cited Trump’s “COMING AFTER YOU!” post and explained that this was part of a pattern of Trump attacking anyone involved in litigation or criminal cases against him. Just this past April on his Truth social account, Trump promised “death and destruction” if he were charged in the “hush-money” case involving an adult film actress.
Judge Chutkan asked Trump’s lawyers to respond to the prosecutors’ request by Monday evening, upon which Trump’s lawyers attempted to get this deadline pushed back until Thursday. However, on Saturday, Chutkan denied this request and held Trump to the Monday 5 p.m. deadline.
A statement issued by the Trump campaign Friday night claimed that Trump’s post was just “political speech” and not targeted against any specific person, but instead a response to “dishonest special interest groups and Super PACs.”
At the same time that Trump’s lawyers were claiming his threats were not directed against any single person, the Trump campaign released a political advertisement targeting prosecutors investigating Trump. The ad attacks “radical liberal” Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, Special Counsel Jack Smith, “socialist” attorney general of New York Letitia James and “incompetent” Atlanta District Attorney Fani Willis. Three of the four are African-American, as is Judge Chutkan, and Willis has already been subjected to a barrage of racist death threats from Trump supporters in recent weeks.
The unprecedented crisis and breakdown of the US political system is expressed in the character and frequency of Trump’s threats, as well as the response of the political establishment in both parties.
Very few Democrats, and virtually no Republicans, have objected publicly. Never before has any prominent bourgeois politician so openly incited violence against judges, prosecutors and his political enemies, while Biden and the vast majority of the Democratic Party remain silent.
This silence is not a mistake, but a political calculation. In order to carry out their shared class agenda of austerity at home and imperialist war abroad, now against Russia in Ukraine, and later against China in Taiwan, the Democrats require the political support of their increasingly authoritarian “Republican colleagues.”
The Democrats are far more concerned that the growing militancy and strike wave in the working class will spiral out their control and threaten the entire capitalist system then they are with the danger of a fascist would-be president.
Trump’s outbursts are not unique to him and reflect the transformation of the large sections of the ruling class, and a majority of the Republican Party into a fascist organization that no longer accepts democracy, or election results that do not favor them. At a campaign event last week Florida Governor Ron DeSantis promised to start “slitting throats” of “these deep state people” on “day one” of his administration.
Spitting in the face of federal prosecutors’ request, Trump doubled down on his violent rhetoric while speaking to a room of 2,700 Republicans in Alabama on Friday night. After receiving a sycophantic introduction from Alabama senator and defender of white nationalists, Tommy Tuberville, Trump railed against the “sham indictment” which he claimed was the product of “rabid left-wing lawyers.”
Trump attacked “really corrupt Marxist prosecutors” with most of his vitriol aimed at Special Counsel Jack Smith who he characterized as a “deranged ... bad guy” devoid of a “soul.”
Trump absurdly claimed that Democratic President Joe Biden, the war-mongering, strike-breaking, capitalist former senator from Delaware, was leading a cabal of “vicious Marxists and communists.” These “Marxist prosecutors” were not only “going after Trump” but attacking “Catholics and the Catholic Church.”
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In addition to his incoherent anti-communist hysteria, Trump repeated the “Wuhan Lab Lie” and promised to “make China pay” for “unleashing the China virus.”
Trump promised to reinstitute the immigration policy known as Title 42 as part of his plan to carry out “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” Trump estimated that there were some “15 million people” that needed to be deported including “children.” Trump promised to “send the children back” to their “home country” and reinstitute the “Trump travel ban” to bar visitors from “majority Muslim” countries.
The next night in South Carolina, Trump repeated the same attacks against his political enemies and prosecutors. As in Alabama, Trump was warmly received by South Carolina elected Republicans in attendance including Senator Lindsey Graham and Governor Henry McMaster.
In his introduction of Trump, McMaster claimed the indictments against Trump were bogus and emanated from the “deep state opposition” he faced. McMaster called for “warriors” to defend Trump, whom he called a “great leader for our people.”
In his over hour-long speech Trump thanked McMaster for keeping the state “open” during COVID-19 and reiterated his attacks against “maniac” Jack Smith.
Trump called on the Senate to “step up” and defend him from further prosecutions and claimed that the fact Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had not yet done so was a sign that “they” had something on him.
“The senators have to step up,” Trump demanded. “The tables will turn and we will destroy the deep state.”
On Sunday morning, Trump continued his violent attacks against prosecutors and his political opponents. Trump attacked former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, whose husband was the victim of a brutal hammer assault inflicted by Trump supporter last year, calling her a “wicked witch” and a “sick & demented psycho who will someday live in HELL!”
In a thinly veiled racist swipe against African-Americans living in Washington D.C. Trump later wrote that there was “NO WAY” he could get a fair trial in D.C. a “FILTHY AND CRIME RIDDEN EMBARRASSMENT TO OUR NATION.” Trump called for Judge Chutkan, an African-American to recuse herself and for the trial to be moved outside of Washington D.C.
On the various Sunday morning talk shows, Trump’s lawyer John Lauro, repeated Trump’s intention to try to get the federal case related to the January 6 attack moved to “West Virginia” which he claimed had a “diverse jury” that represented the “characteristics of the American people.”