President Donald Trump and his allies have spent weeks painstakingly trying to manufacture an image of an irredeemably violent American left.
This despite a series of rulings from judges, including several Republican-appointed ones, saying the image being painted is a mirage. And it’s despite hard data showing that, even as left-wing violence has increased this year, it still pales to decades of right-wing violence.
But ahead of the “No Kings” rallies across the country on Saturday, the GOP’s effort has taken a rather stunning turn.
The Trump team and its allies suggested that the rallies, which are likely to draw millions of people, will essentially be chock full of antifa, terrorist sympathizers and even terrorists themselves.
It’s baseless and ugly, yes. But it’s also highly suspect strategically.
The GOP rhetoric surrounding this and the Democratic base more broadly has grown remarkably pitched.
House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana has called them “hate America” rallies and said it’s “all the pro-Hamas wing and, you know, the antifa people.”
A member of his leadership team, Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, described the rallies as being held by the “terrorist wing” of the party.
Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas predicted that “paid protesters” and “agitators” would require calling in the National Guard.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the “No Kings” protests were “part of antifa.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent predicted they would feature the “most unhinged in the Democratic Party.”
Others have stepped up their rhetoric about the left in other contexts.
Attorney General Pam Bondi suggested the fact that protesters might be provided matching signs could somehow be evidence of antifa funding. (Trump’s own rallies often include people holding matching signs that were handed out, as comedian Jimmy Kimmel noted.)
And White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt issued perhaps the most extreme comments Thursday on Fox News.
“The Democrat Party’s main constituency are made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals,” Leavitt said.
The first thing to note is that the kinds of broad brushes being employed here are exactly the kinds of broad brushes Republicans have previously decried.
They’ve spent years assailing Hillary Clinton for putting large numbers of Trump supporters in what she called a “basket of deplorables.” Even less than a year ago, they were seemingly apoplectic about President Joe Biden arguably calling some Trump supporters “garbage.”
Leavitt herself cast the latter episode as proof that Biden and Kamala Harris “despise the tens of millions of Americans who support” Trump.
The comments also come even as Republicans after Charlie Kirk’s assassination sought to link the coarsening of our rhetoric – things like calling Trump a “fascist” – to political violence.
Charlie Kirk appears at a Utah Valley University speaking event in Orem, Utah, on September 10.Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune/Reuters
Does that not also apply to calling wide swaths of the electorate terrorist sympathizers? The administration has now moved from decrying those broad brushes to embracing them.
But even beyond that, it’s a weird strategy.
These aren’t the first “No Kings” rallies, after all. They were also held across the country back in June, and they were overwhelmingly peaceful. The scenes were largely full of very normal-looking, liberal Americans speaking their minds.
Fox News this week managed to find five incidents of violence and/or arrests from the June rallies – rallies which, again, drew millions.
But two of them were actually alleged attacks against the protesters, with people allegedly targeting them with motor vehicles. In another case in Florida, 2 of 3 people arrested were counter-protesters. A fourth example was a deadly shooting by a “peacekeeper” who apparently feared someone was about to carry out a mass shooting. (As of last month, it wasn’t clear that either the peacekeeper or the other man would even face charges.)
Anything can happen on Saturday, but the scenes could also provide a rather rapid counterpoint to the alternate reality the GOP is attempting to paint.
Democratic politicians like California Gov. Gavin Newsom and many others this week have made a point to emphasize these comments reinforce the need to keep the proceedings peaceful. Some have warned those assembled not to give the administration any scenes that might give it pretexts for Trump’s militarization of the homeland.
Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona said Trump is “trying to incite violence as a justification just for more control.”
If anything, the scenes in Portland, Oregon, in recent weeks suggest such messages are being received.
Protesters there have taken to wearing costumes and otherwise engaging in light-hearted forms of protest. Their efforts appear aimed at betraying the ridiculousness of Trump’s decision to send in the National Guard. A Trump-appointed judge has said the administration’s claims of violence in Portland – which Trump has labeled “war ravaged” – are “untethered to the facts.”
To this point, Trump’s argument that the left is unusually violent doesn’t appear to have penetrated American public opinion.
A Marquette University Law School poll last month showed Americans are about evenly split on whether left-wing violence or right-wing violence was a bigger problem. And a CBS News-YouGov poll this month actually showed significantly more Americans called the Republican Party “extreme” (59%) as said the same about the Democratic Party (46%).
The stakes here are huge. To the extent Trump can turn this into reality in Americans’ minds, it opens the door to all kinds of powers he craves. That’s not just when it comes to militarizing US soil, but also wielding heavy-handed tools to crack down on the political left, as he’s made clear he’d very much like to do.
Saturday begins a new phase in this high-stakes moment for our country.
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