Today, Dr. Fauci is being dragged back to yet another Republican led witch hunt, stunt, viral moment snippet maker, or whatever you want to call these things. But let’s just agree that they’re actually dangerous and this will only escalate when Trump is back in office. Which my Trumpometer say’s as of today is a 98.9% probability.
Okay, so violence and inciting violence has been normalized by the Republicans, and as with everything else they do, they claim it’s actually the Democrats inciting violence. That’s the rubber/glue method of disinformation that they love to employ. To great effect I might add.
If you didn’t already know, Fauci has been living with credible death threats for years now. He has a security detail appointed to him, at taxpayer expense, because of the death threats. Republicans and Fox news have been calling for suspending the security and having Fauci pay for his own while at the same time actively spreading the exact type of disinformation that requires the safety measures in the first place. As Fauci testified today, everytime more lies are spread about him he has a major uptick of death threats.
Dr. Fauci isn’t alone, in 2020 and 2021 an online survey done by the CDC found that one third of all public health workers had experienced bullying, violence or threats. Today, Marjorie Taylor-Greene, refused to Address Dr. Fauci as a doctor, called his science evil and called for his imprisonment for crimes against humanity. Yep, evil science.
But obviously that’s just a tiny fraction of what the Republicans are calling for. They’ve called for investigations into Mark Milly, Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, Merick Garland and many many more. And all of this has already had an effect. On January 6th people were hunting for Nancy Pelosi in the capital. They set up a noose to hang Mike Pence. Nancy Pelosi’s husband was later assaulted at his home by someone who wanted to kidnap her. Turns out that inciting violence has this weird effect where violence actually occurs.
Convicted felon and former president Trump has been openly calling for purging the government of scum and is now implying that investigating political opponents may be necessary because he is being persecuted. He’s not, he’s being rightfully tried for his numerous crimes, but that doesn’t matter. At least 70 million people believe him and will vote for him. And when he’s in and these house committee investigations start to have real teeth what’s going to happen?
This is my question. Everyone knows Trump supporters somewhere in their family or neighborhood or work. Many of them don’t seem to see these threats as being real. Obviously though many do, and I’m expecting that many militia types will step up. It’s hard to imagine that they’ve toned down their enthusiasm in the face of Republicans being more vocal than ever that political violence will be necessary.
So what about the somewhat loveable normal Trump supporters that we all know? It’s one thing to love sticking it to the man in theory but what will happen when sticking it to the man entails really sticking it to the man with a bayonet? Will there be a line that gets crossed for those people? Or will jail time and the occasional assassination be tolerable and excused by tens of millions of people? That’s what we’re about to find out when Trump is back in office. And I really don’t have an answer. But if you watched snippets of the reaction to Trump’s conviction a common refrain is that people are going to lash out if he loses in the fall. Lot’s of those loveable looking fuck-your-feelings Trump supporters said so to local TV stations throughout the swing states. So if he wins and the Republicans carry out what they are threatening to do, then my question is, how far will some of these people follow them down this path of violence?
I don’t know, but I’m 98.9% sure we’re going to find out.