Recently Donald Trump has been committing so many outrageous acts that, as a society, we are becoming numb to his idiocy. People are beginning to take an approach that closely resembles “what has he done this time” instead of being outraged by his actions. While this is understandable because as humans we seek to cushion ourselves from these reoccurring mini traumas, it is also very dangerous. When we build a tolerance for discrimination and hate, merely to make ourselves feel good, we are unable to understand the full scope of just how bad things are.
Donald Trump’s consistent inciting of violence is something that cannot go unnoticed and cannot be down played. On multiple occasions Trump has put out vague violent statements about citizens, political figures, and individual groups. These statements began long before he was elected as president.
Back in February—In Las Vegas—Trump was outraged that a protestor was disrupting his rally, which prompted him to say, “In the old days protestors would be carried out on stretchers, we’re not allowed to push back anymore”. Similarly, in reference to Hillary Clinton Trump stated, “If she gets to pick her judges, nothing we can do, folks. Although, the second amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know”, at a rally in Washington. Most recently during his election, we have seen Trump tweet a video of him tackling and punching an individual whose face has been covered up by the CNN logo.
What do these incidents have in common? Stochastic Terrorism. Stochastic Terrorism simply put is the use of rhetoric to insight terrorism or violence, which are statistically predictable but individually not. Meaning that when these statements are made we can predict that someone will act violently because of them, we just cannot predict who the individual acting will be. Making this form of terrorism even more violent.
Because of this Trump can sit back after these statements and completely remove himself from blame. As he blatantly did not tell a particular individual to act violently, however just from a brief summary of his past statements it is easy to conclude what he is alluding to.
By making these violent statements he is creating space for his supporters to do the same in their everyday life. What is even worse is that he is establishing a ground for them to act violently because they will believe this is what their President wants. What Trump may later say was his “actual meaning” is completely irrelevant because he was already put out a dog whistle to random individuals waiting to hear it.