Now that Donald Trump has officially been indicted, Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg and others have been targeted by disturbed protestors threatening retribution and even death.
Even Donald Trump warned of “potential death and destruction” once he was charged in a probe of hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
“The political Rubicon has been crossed. There’s no going back from this,” Charlie Kirk, a right-wing talk show host, wrote on Truth Social, Trump’s social media platform. Fox News host Jesse Waters warned, “The country’s not gonna stand for it. And people better be careful. And that’s all I’ll say about that.”
Numerous conservative pundits have hinted at, if not encouraged, rebellion and violence. Such brazen, careless and callous rhetoric is nothing short of abominable.
Truth be told, Americans have periodically witnessed such violence from segments of our population over the course of our country’s history, mainly White supremacists who believe they have the privilege and right to the sort of government and nation that suits them. At various times in our nation’s history, armed protestors – often carrying confederate and altered Nazi flags – have taken to the streets to belligerently demand concessions.
Today, in the post-Trump era, vast segments of the right-wing media ecosystem have begun to toss around the word “boogaloo,” a prominent term among anarchists who have been increasingly and passionately agitating for a racial civil war.
While these gun-toting rebels are after labeled “warriors for free speech” by their political allies, they espouse nothing but poisonous words of vitriol for groups they disagree with, including Black Lives Matter and environmental activists attempting to offer warnings about climate change.
Many of these resistors (overwhelmingly White) appear to have no compunction in gleefully engaging in blatant acts of disrespectful and menacing behavior. Does anyone with any degree of sanity believe that a group of rabidly undisciplined people of color who dared to act in a similar way be celebrated by police and treaded as free speech warriors by the right?
Just imagine for a second if a group of Black protestors defiantly brandished assault rifles while screaming obscenities at law enforcement officials. What would the reaction be? How would we treat protestors who called for the deportation of certain ethnic groups of white people, or openly called for the overthrow of the government?
The truth is a large group of people of color aggressively protesting would not have gotten anywhere near a state capitol building, let alone been granted permission to go inside. This is the epitome of white privilege.
Elwood Watson is a professor of history, Black studies, and gender and sexuality studies at East Tennessee State University. He is also an author and public speaker.
