CNN
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The lesson of January 6, 2021, is that when extremism, conspiracies and incitement reach a boiling point, they seek an outlet.
That recent history is loudly echoing amid a deepening sense that the country could be heading back to a dark political place as another Election Day looms. And sadly, in a such a toxic age, another violent eruption cannot be ruled out.
As he contemplates a 2024 campaign and rallies for 2022 candidates, ex-President Donald Trump is conducting a new symphony of political malice and facing little pushback from his party despite the insurrection’s example of where the politics of malevolence can lead.
The foreboding atmosphere five weeks before the midterm elections shows the country remains in the grip of the rancor that stained the peaceful transfer of power from one president to another less than two years ago.
This coincides with painful and far from complete investigations into what happened after the 2020 election. On Monday, for instance, on the first day of the trial of five alleged members of the Oath Keepers militia charged with seditious conspiracy, jurors heard how senators cried as they hid from Trump’s mob.
The former President dialed up the hate another notch last week with a social media post that accused Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, with whom he has a strained relationship, of having a “death wish” and flung racism at his wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. In another escalation, Trump recently slammed FBI agents as “vicious monsters” over the lawful search of his Florida home.
One of the ex-President’s top boosters, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, also played into Trump’s politics of fear at his weekend rally in Michigan, claiming that Democrats wanted Republicans dead.
Trump’s political model remains rooted in igniting anger among his supporters. The more outrageous his comments, the more that the ex-President and his supporters show disdain for Washington elites and the rules and conventions that constrain the presidency and government institutions. His political self image emulates the militarism and brashness of foreign strongmen. And in a sense, his refusal to temper his political speech, even at the risk of endangering others, demonstrates yet again his power over a party that largely refuses to rebuke him, however extreme he becomes.
Attacks on or threats to political leaders are not just a bloody relic of America’s past. There have been multiple recent instances of intimidation targeting political figures from both parties – from death threats left on Illinois GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger’s phone over his involvement in the House’s insurrection probe to charges filed against a man who allegedly harassed Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state.
In June, a man was charged with attempting to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The same month, New York Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin, who’s running for governor, was attacked by a man at a campaign event. While the alleged assailant appeared not to have a political motive, it was a reminder, as if one was needed, of the vulnerability of candidates on the stump.
Former Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona was left with life-changing injuries by a gunman who attacked a constituency event in 2011, killing six people. In 2017, Louisiana GOP Rep. Steve Scalise was badly wounded by a gunman who opened fire at a congressional baseball practice. The man had professed support for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ progressive politics and hated conservatives and Trump, according to a CNN review of his Facebook profiles, public records and letters to his newspaper. (Sanders, who has never employed the kind of incitement that Trump is known…
Read More: Trump’s violent rhetoric conjures chilling echoes as midterms loom