During Trump's first term, his stream of verbal attacks on members of the press led to credible threats toward news organizations, among other figures whose lives, not just their ability to do their jobs, were endangered. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Trump stated at a rally that the journalists who had reported in advance on that decision should reveal their informants or face future rape in prison. And in a second Trump term, with the government and federal law enforcement reorganized along distinctly Trumpian lines, who would be there to block such horrors?
Working to destroy a free press would also, of course, have life (and death) implications. A simple case in point from recent years: after Covid vaccines became available to the public in early 2021, excess mortality in red states, where many believed Republican disinformation campaigns about such shots, soared more than a third higher than in blue states. Now imagine that happening at a national level.
It's disturbing to contemplate what, in a second Trump administration, a chilling of the mediasphere could mean. Let me take an example close to my own heart. Military family members have relied heavily on our ability to access one another's writings and social media posts to find validation and support for our daily struggles, involving constant moves, the mental anguish of loved ones, financial struggles, and isolation. In our world, any time a deranged Trump supporter threatens someone they disagree with, they puncture an already fragile social safety net of information-sharing and support among this country's war-beleaguered troops and veterans. And in a second Trump era, that could happen to all of us on a national level.
The Threat from Within
Threats from the former president and his supporters would undoubtedly have real teeth in a second Trump term. Since the January 6th riots, it's been no secret that the military, the Department of Homeland Security, and local and federal law enforcement agencies include significant numbers of extremists who sympathize with far-right groups that exhibit racist and anti-Semitic views. And keep in mind that members of the Republican Party have already successfully pressured the military not to screen its ranks for just such types.
Now, imagine an America in which Donald Trump has installed his own loyalists and this time around they will indeed be loyal to him in the top ranks of the Pentagon. As Axios recently reported, Pentagon officials speaking under anonymity have voiced concerns about the Trump-allied Heritage Foundation's plan to "prioritize the core roles and responsibilities of the military over social engineering and non-defense related matters, including climate change, critical race theory [and] manufactured extremism." They read into that plan's very vagueness on the subject Trump's intention to dramatically alter the role of the military in American life, including the possibility of employing the Insurrection Act and so that very military on his first day in office to suppress any civil demonstrations against him.
Electing Trump and crew, intent as they are on sowing hostility and contempt for the institutions of government, means putting into office those who embrace a future culture of violence. He and his supporters remind me of a family friend who, when we were little, used to get angry at me if I was beating him at checkers. I recall him flipping over our board the minute it became clear that my next move would mean victory for me.
The adults in our lives used to try to contain his rage by comforting him and, like sycophantic members of the Republican Party today, they effectively nurtured a bully. That kid would, in fact, grow up to become a federal law enforcement official who would indeed come under investigation for hateful social media posts. Under Trump round two, vigilantes with grudges like his would find a role model in the Oval Office and we would all face the repercussions.
If you don't want violence to explode inside our borders against people like you and me, then each of us should do our damnedest to ensure that a candidate who prioritizes revenge over those who protect law and order, tell the truth, work hard, and play fair doesn't make it into the Oval Office a second time. Otherwise, it's likely that the solid ground afforded us by our imperfect union will be pulled from beneath our feet and it will be all too hard to reassemble the pieces.
Copyright 2023 Andrea Mazzarino
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