(Not) Out of Control

Back in the day I provided education to domestic violence offenders. I learned lots of things then that have stuck with me: abusers are not "out of control." They're perfectly capable of controlling themselves in contexts where they may be held to account. They exercise rage when they find it safe to do so. Maybe they feel out of control, but that's not the real problem. 

Donald Trump's recent messaging may seem out of control. It certainly feels that way, as his daily outbursts escalate in intensity. He's behind in the polls, six months remain, and we wonder: will Donald Trump take society over the edge?

He might. But he's not out of control. His apparently crazy tweets indicate effort and diligent research. I doubt Trump is doing it himself, but who knows? 

This week I tracked the signs that Trump's racist attacks against Stacey Abrams were carefully designed. During a single tweetstorm Trump repeatedly retweeted a guy named John K. Stahl, whose timeline is filled with race-baiting material. On inspection it becomes clear that Trump didn't retweet something he ran across accidentally. Trump picked the race-baiting tweets he could get away with, at once signalling his real message to hard-core racists who know the language and maintaining a lingerie-thin level of deniability. 

As Minneapolis burns we have new tweeting from the Racist in Chief. Trump retweeted a group called Cowboys for Trump, in which the head cowboy proclaims, "The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat." Trump's retweet, "Thank you Cowboys. See you in New Mexico," has been called out, but it remains active.

(The speaker, who holds public office in New Mexico, did say he didn't mean it literally. Awesome.)

Then there's the aftermath of George Floyd's killing at the hands of Minneapolis police. Classic Trump: after Joe Biden spoke out, Trump finally promised justice for Floyd and his family. Trump did not, of course, mention Floyd's race. Then, when violence broke out in Minneapolis: Trump issued this:

These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!

So the rioters, not the police officers, are "thugs," and Trump will order the military to shoot civilians for property crimes. (Kent State went great didn't it?) As happens with Trump, the racial worm has turned. 

Thank God for historian John Fea, Fea uncovered the racist backstory to Trump's tweet. "When the rioting starts, the shooting starts" goes back to a Miami police chief, Walter Headley, who threatened to shoot looters during 1967 race riots. The full Miami Herald excerpt provided by Fea makes clear the racist undertones. I'll save the selections for below.

How did Trump manage to echo language from a racist police chief in 1967? Maybe the phrase stuck in his memory. More likely, someone very evil dug up this phrase and kept it handy for an opportune moment. 

Donald Trump isn't out of control. But our country is very close.

Selections:

• "Community relations and all that sort of thins has failed. We have done everything we could, sending speakers out and meeting with Negro leaders. But it has amounted to nothing."
• "We haven’t had any serious problems with civil uprisings and looting because I’ve let the word filter down that when the looting starts, the shooting starts."
• He said the major group his “get tough” policy is aimed at is young Negro males, from 15 to 21.
• “Ninety per cent of our Negro population is law abiding and wants to eliminate our crime problems. But 10 per cent are young hoodlums who have taken advantage of the civil rights campaign.”

"You're Being Ugly"

I grew up in Alabama, and I'm old enough to remember acting when acting bratty would earn the rebuke, "You're being ugly."

Folks, Donald Trump is getting bad polling news, and he's acting ugly. We can count on it getting worse. 

Trump is losing support where it counts. Older voters, particularly women, and independents are turning against him. A recent FoxNews poll has Biden ahead of Trump by 13 points among independents and--hold your pants--17 among seniors. Trump won both groups in 2016. Even white evangelical support is crumbling, a possible explanation for Trump's insistence that churches be allowed to open on Memorial Day weekend.

Of course, Trump was on the golf course Sunday, not in church or worshiping online.

When the going gets tough, Trump whines louder, especially on Twitter.

• He repeated his conspiracy theory/accusation that TV critic Joe Scarborough committed murder while he was a member of Congress. Accusations like these damage democracy, but they also hurt real people. The widower of the Scarborough staffer who died in 2001 issued a request that Twitter delete Trump's tweets on the grounds that they are so harmful to him.
• Trump even attacked Democratic member of Congress Conor Lamb, a Marine vet, as "an American fraud," misspelling Lamb's name on Twitter. He labeled Lamb "a puppet for Lazy Nancy Pelosi," even though Lamb was one of few House members to vote against Pelosi's speakership.
• He retweeted several offerings from a GOP activist who can only be labeled a racist. One RT called called Hillary Clinton a "skank." Another called Nancy Pelosi "PolyGrip." A third went all the way in, combining the race card and portraying Stacey Abrams as fat.

This series of tweets was especially revealing, especially concerning Trump's racism. It indicates that Trump didn't come upon those tweets by accident but was scrolling through the troll's feed. (The account is John K. Stahl.) The guy is racist as hell, though he actually denies it in one tweet. That's what they do. In the same batch of tweets Trump was scrolling, Stahl referred to Abrams as Shamu and to Elizabeth Warren by Trump's nickname, Pocahontas. (What color is Shamu?)

In short, Donald Trump knows what kind of material he's retweeting and spends time in racist accounts.