Trump unleashed: This is the calm before the storm

Donald Trump is unleashed.

Following his historic felony conviction in New York for election interference, the former president has become even more dangerous. As the 2024 election approaches and he feels more pressure from the potential of time in prison for his crimes, Trump’s violent and antisocial behavior will only escalate.

In the last few days and weeks, Donald Trump has, again, threatened to have President Biden and other leading Democrats put in prison. Trump has also threatened them with execution for “treason." During a recent interview with TV personality Dr. Phil, Trump plainly stated that he would have to seek revenge on President Biden and his other so-called enemies.“Well, revenge does take time, I will say that….And sometimes revenge can be justified, Phil, I have to be honest. Sometimes it can.”

Trump’s campaign speeches have become filled with even more menace — what MSNBC host Rachel Maddow has astutely described as “pornographically violent” — even by his standards. While it is easy to focus on Trump’s “unhinged” behavior as he obsesses about his fear of sharks and the evils of electric trucks, the sinister nature of Trump’s speeches and his dark charisma should not be ignored or otherwise overlooked or deemphasized. Trump’s MAGA cultists treat his speeches and rallies like a type of religious service where they are worshipping their Dear Leader as a type of prophet and messiah-god-martyr.

Trump is continuing to summon and channel Adolf Hitler and the Nazis as he uses eliminationist and other genocidal language to describe non-white migrants and refugees and the other people (Democrats, liberals, and “the Left”) he views as “vermin” and human pollution in American society.

In a democracy, the news media is supposed to serve as watchdogs who hold the powerful accountable and educate the public so that they can make informed voting and other political decisions. Ideally, the news media should tell the public what is important, how to think about it, and then what to do about it. In a country such as the United States that is experiencing a democracy crisis, those responsibilities are heightened. In the Age of Trump, the American news media has mostly failed in those obligations and responsibilities. To that point, the mainstream news media has continued to mostly ignore Donald Trump’s increasingly dangerous language, as seen in his fundraising emails and coordinated campaign propaganda, to radicalize his MAGA people and other followers into committing acts of violence if he is sentenced to prison for his many crimes and/or loses the 2024 election.

Here are some of the most incendiary fundraising emails that Donald Trump has recently sent out to his MAGA followers:

In this email, Trump is telling his MAGA people they are living under a Biden “dictatorship” and suffering under tyranny. This is of course a willful lie and act of projection. Donald Trump has promised to be a dictator on “day one” of his presidency if he wins the 2024 election. President Biden is a staunch defender of American democracy and its institutions. If one accepts the premise of Trump’s claim the logical response is violence and war.

In the following fundraising email, Trump is even more explicit as he uses language about “MAGA” being attacked with gunfire and other such lethal violence by President Biden, the Democrats, “Woke”, and the “deep state” and other supposed non-existent enemies as part of a “witch hunt” conspiracy to oppress him and his MAGA cultists and other “real Americans” (read White Americans). Again, the logical, legitimate, and moral solution to such existential threats is lethal violence and war.

In this third example, Donald Trump threatens President Biden with a “day of reckoning." Given Trump’s previous public and private comments this means putting President Biden in prison and then executing him for “treason." Trump also continues to trigger the death anxieties and other existential fears of his MAGA people, where again, the predictable (and obviously desired) outcome is violence.

The reaction by the mainstream news media, pundits, and other such observers (especially the centrists) to Donald Trump’s escalating threats and promises of violence will follow a predictable and tired routine.

There will be claims that this is all “overheated rhetoric," and that Trump is kidding because it is part of his “performance”. As author Masha Gessen warns, always believe the autocrat and authoritarian, they are not kidding. Moreover, there is little to no substantive evidence to suggest that Trump and his agents are just “performing” their threats of violence and revenge. In reality, this strategy of normalizing political violence serves the larger right-wing project to end America’s multiracial democracy (see Project 2025, Agenda 47, and the Red Caesar scenario).

The most naïve will continue to hide behind America’s “institutions” and “national character” and how “the guardrails” and “the rule of law” will supposedly not allow Trump to engage in the types of violence and authoritarian plans he has publicly outlined and promised against his “enemies." The most absurd among such voices will react with “Trump could not become a dictator in 2016, so why be afraid now?” Such denials and deflections are foolish and the worst sort of toxic wish-casting and hope-peddling. At this point in the Age of Trump anyone with a public platform who says such things should not be taken seriously because they are functioning as useful idiots who are paving the way for the end of the country’s democracy and the ascent of Dictator Trump and his successors’ dictatorship(s).

Some more “sober” and “realistic” voices will intervene that yes, Donald Trump is saying increasingly dangerous things, but his MAGA followers are greatly exaggerated in their willingness to fight and die for him and the neofascist cause. In many ways, this is self-soothing talk. A range of experts on political violence, national security, and democracy are continuing to warn that the threat of violence by Trump’s MAGA people and other members of the right-wing is very serious and should not be underestimated.

More critical voices will suggest that Trump is using the strategy known as “stochastic terrorism”, where through repetition and coded suggestions political violence takes place but the leaders and other agents can then hide behind a veneer or plausible deniability. That is imprecise. As seen with these fundraising emails and other communications, Donald Trump and his propagandists are now basically commanding, in a clear and direct fashion, the MAGA people and other foot soldiers to engage in acts of violence and terrorism.

And there are basic legal questions here as well. Should someone convicted of a felony, like Donald Trump, be allowed to freely make such threats and incitements to violence – including attacks on Judge Merchan and other members of law enforcement and the courts?

I have been tracking Donald Trump’s emails and other communications for more than eight years. In a recent essay, I observed that he has hit a new bottom with his horror politics strategy and its emphasis on serial killers, murder, and other graphic violence. I was incorrect. Following his felony conviction, Donald Trump and his propagandists will only get worse. We will look back at these months before the election and Donald Trump’s sentencing in July (especially if he is put in prison) as being relatively good and normal times as compared to what is going to happen next.