Brunswick Beacon, 02.17.22
At a Jan. 29 rally, Trump delivered what has been called “one of the most incendiary, dangerous speeches in U.S. history.”
In the previous nine days, a Georgia court approved a grand jury investigating Trump’s attempt to overthrow its 2020 election, and New York’s Attorney General filed papers detailing fraud by the Trump Organization. Trump felt the law closing in as he mounted the stage.
He promised, if elected again, to pardon the January 6 attackers. He wanted his listeners to know he would pardon them too if they do his bidding.
He said his business dealings were “not criminal”, but prosecutors had been after him “since I came down the escalator.” He called them “vicious, horrible people” who “want to put me in jail.”
He demonized them: “They're racists and they're very sick -- they're mentally sick," he said of black prosecutors in New York and Georgia. Having ridden the politics of white resentment to the White House, Trump cannot imagine being treated fairly by blacks.
He urged the mob to take to the streets “in Washington, D.C., in New York, in Atlanta, and elsewhere” against “these radical racist vicious prosecutors.” Further stoking white resentment, he said “They’re not after me, they’re after you!”
As Liz Cheney said about Jan. 6, Trump “summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack.” He’s doing it again, using racial resentment to burn down our justice system. His inflammatory race baiting has already instigated more threats and racist slurs against the office of the Georgia prosecutor he targeted.
North Carolina Republicans like Congressman David Rouzer have done nothing to dowse the flames from Trump’s incendiary, racially charged attack. His silence isn’t helping the fireman, it’s only helping the arsonist.
Michael P. Rush
Leland