Trump's MAGA fans believe they're fighting for an American revolution. That's why we saw violence in El Paso
Note the moment when things turned aggressive at the Texas rally and you see how some clever psychological tactics made it so likely to happen
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Your support makes all the difference.“F**k the media,” the man in the red Make America Great Again hat screamed. Moments before, he’d violently attacked a BBC cameraman who stood quietly filming the president’s speech last night in El Paso, jumping onto a press platform and shoving him wildly.
In the minutes leading up to the attack, Trump had, as his audience no doubt now expects, lambasted the media. Pointing to where they stood, he proclaimed: “There they are”, to right-on-cue boos from the crowd.
“The media refuses to acknowledge what we’ve done and how well we’re doing,” he continued. “I guess 93 per cent of the stories are negative. No matter what we do, they figure out a way to make it [negative].”
How did we get here? Media hostility has become a feature of Trump rallies, as the journalists who cover them will attest. BBC correspondent and witness to last night’s attack Gary O’Donoghue told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the whipping up of anti-press feeling is a “constant feature of these rallies… I have been spat at before… They hurl abuse at American colleagues in particular.”
Last summer, condemning Trump’s verbal assaults on the press, departing UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein claimed the president’s statements came dangerously “close to incitement of violence”. In the ensuing months, scores of journalists and outlets echoed this message. Only in December, the infamous CNN bomb threat was received on the very night Trump complained once more of “fake news”, branding the media “the enemy of the people”.
In the minds of many Trump fans, the link is already clear: media=enemy. And the exact moment at which last night’s attack took place provides a great illustration as to why this feeling is so hard to shake.
Trump was talking about America’s current economic success. And while his claims of “an economic miracle” are no doubt overblown, he is correct when he says unemployment is down and wages are up. As far as his fans are concerned, things are getting better, and only an irrational hatred – what the MAGA-ers call “Trump derangement syndrome” – prevents a biased media and their lackeys from admitting it.
On Twitter and at his rallies, Trump likes to cast the fourth estate as dishonest and unfair. And for his most ardent supporters, this rings true: they see a hero bravely championing their interests – devastating tax cuts for the rich and effective tax hikes for the middle class notwithstanding.
Bombarded with blue-skies talk of peace on the Korean peninsula and a revived manufacturing sector in the media they consume, anti-Trump coverage on the other side presents them with cognitive dissonance. So it must be that the media is crooked. Add to that the urgent rhetoric the MAGA project is cloaked in – just last night Trump proclaimed the movement an “incredible American revolution”, asserting that “there’s never been anything like this in the history of our country”. Trump’s base believes it is fighting for the life of the nation, and so, for a fair number of people in that crowd, the attacker was justified. As the assailant was led away by security, many were chanting “Let him go”. He was defending their hero, and, as they see it, the truth.
We have little cause to hope these kinds of attacks will stop any time soon. Firstly because the law appears to offer little support. In fact, an incitement lawsuit against Trump filed by three protestors who were violently assaulted by Trump supporters came to nothing; even as the then-presidential hopeful looked on, pointing at the protesters and saying repeatedly, “Get ‘em out of here” (Nwanguma v. Trump).
Despite the fact that incitement is not protected under the First Amendment, as law professor Richard Ashby Wilson has argued, courts are unlikely to rule for it. And even if they did, and Trump was forced to tone it down, would it make a difference?
As last night’s rally shows, the mere mention of “the media” now provokes a Pavlovian response in the minds of the most ardent MAGA-ers, cuing boos and hisses. Even if a ruling were to be made at this point, when the mere phrase “There they are” provokes booing, what good would it do?
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