An explosion of violence fueled by hate

Over at Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall recently took note of the fact that political violence has been on the rise over the last couple of months. For example, 

• the terrorist attack in New Orleans,
• the cybertruck explosion in Las Vegas
• the shooting of the United Healthcare CEO
the biggest collection of homemade explosive devices in the FBI's history was found at a home outside Norfolk, Virginia.

Noting this country's long history of political violence, Marshall tried to unravel the threads of what is going on. He suggests that it is a general disinhibition for violence that is the culprit. 

I was reminded of something President Biden said a couple of years ago.

Hate never goes away. It only hides.

White supremacy and hate-fueled violence have no place in America. pic.twitter.com/zGySbv3NGl

— President Biden (@POTUS) September 20, 2022

Hate never fully goes away. And when given any oxygen,  it comes out from under the rocks. In the last few years, we've given it too much oxygen in our politics, in our media, and on the internet. Too much hate, all for power and profit. Too much hate that fueled extremist violence, that's been allowed to fester and grow.

Twenty years ago, Derrick Jensen wrote something similar in his book, "The Culture of Make Believe" (emphasis mine).

Several times I have commented that hatred felt long and deeply enough no longer feels like hatred, but more like tradition, economics, religion, what have you. It is when those traditions are challenged, when the entitlement is threatened, when the masks of religion, economics, and so on are pulled away that hate transforms from its more seemingly sophisticated, "normal," chronic state—where those exploited are looked down upon, or despised—to a more acute and obvious manifestation. Hate becomes more perceptible when it is no longer normalized.

Another way to say all of this is that if the rhetoric of superiority works to maintain the entitlement, hatred and direct physical force remains underground. But when that rhetoric begins to fail, force and hatred waits in the wings, ready to explode.

That's why it is important to note that, in response to the recent incidents of violence, Trump and his enablers are responding with even more hate. 

They're too busy blaming the violence on their usual targets - Biden, immigrants, DEI and public schools - to notice the facts of each case. 

But as Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said, it goes even deeper than an attempt to level blame. He tweeted that Trump is "going to use episodes of violence to justify his crack down on immigrants and his attack on dissent - whether the facts line up or not." He followed that up with this prediction: 

In the coming days, watch for autocracy-fetishizing MAGA figures who call on Trump to use "emergency powers" or "domestic war powers" (i.e. some form of martial law) to confront domestic terrorism.

They aren't out to destroy terrorists. They're out to destroy the rule of law.

— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) January 3, 2025

So here's the pattern: Unleash the hate by rhetorically giving it oxygen. When it leads to violence, use that as an excuse to declare martial law against both immigrants and any form of dissent. 

I hope to god that I'm overreacting. But Murphy is hardly the hair-raising type. To add to the alarm, Bret Bair recently said that he's been told to expect "shock and awe" on day one of Trump's presidency. As a reminder, here's what it looked like the last time a presidential administration used that phrase: