Yesterday, Trump tried to walk back his Saturday warning in Dayton of a “blood bath” if he is not reelected, saying he was just warning of a “blood bath” in store for the auto industry if his proposed 100 percent tariff on Chinese cars isn’t enacted.
Rubbish.
At the start of that Saturday rally, Trump raised his hand in salute to the brim of his red MAGA hat, as a recorded chorus of prisoners in jail for their roles in the Jan. 6 attack sang the national anthem. An announcer asked the crowd to please rise “for the horribly and unfairly treated January 6th hostages.” The crowd did, and sang along.
Then, as the recording ended, Trump praised the people serving prison sentences for attacking the Capitol on January 6 — calling them “hostages” and “unbelievable patriots,” commending their spirit, and promising to help them if elected in November.“ Having previously vowed to pardon the rioters, he promised to help them “the first day we get into office.”
He is making the January 6 attack, and his claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him, the centerpiece of his 2024 campaign.
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Trump loyalists know exactly what he meant when he declared that the country would face a blood bath if he lost in November, because they’ve heard him issue similar warnings before — and sometimes acted them.
In 2016, he warned that if he were denied the presidential nomination at the GOP convention, “I think you’d have riots.”
In November 2020, he warned that an adverse ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court would “induce violence in the streets.”
After the FBI’s search of his Mar-a-Lago estate in August 2022, he warned that “terrible things are going to happen,” and then quoted Senator Lindsey Graham predicting “riots in the streets” if Trump were charged.
Last March, Trump threatened “potential death & destruction” if charged by the Manhattan district attorney and berated those urging his supporters to stay peaceful, saying, “OUR COUNTRY IS BEING DESTROYED, AS THEY TELL US TO BE PEACEFUL!”
In January, Trump warned that if the criminal charges against him succeeded, there would be “bedlam in the country.” Days earlier, speaking of efforts to remove him from the ballot using the 14th Amendment, he warned that “If we don’t [get treated fairly], our country’s in big, big trouble. Does everybody understand what I’m saying? I think so.”
Exhibit A in Trump’s incitements to violence occurred on January 6, 2021, at the rally he held near the White House two hours before the electoral vote count was to start at the Capitol.
There, Trump repeated his lies about how the election had been stolen and told the crowd, “We will never give up. We will never concede. It will never happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved. Our country has had enough. We will not take it any more.”
He accused Republicans of fighting like a boxer with his hands tied behind his back, overly respectful of “bad people.” Instead, he said, they would have to:
“fight much harder … We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them, because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong … We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country any more.”
He told the crowd that “different rules” applied to them. “When you catch somebody in a fraud, you are allowed to go by very different rules.”
Then — knowing that members of the crowd were armed — he dispatched them to the Capitol just as the electoral count was about to start. The attack on the Capitol came immediately thereafter.
The most recent consequence of Trump’s ongoing incitements occurred a few weeks ago at a meeting of the Maricopa County, Arizona, board of supervisors. (Maricopa County is home to more than half of Arizona’s residents.)
Just as the board neared the end of its meeting on February 28, a swarm of Trump supporters rushed toward the dais, shouting that the board’s members were illegitimate. The board members ran through a side door and were rushed out of the building by security guards, who called for backup from the sheriff’s office.
After the meeting’s live feed went dead, a member of the crowd yelled that a “revolution” was underway. Some in the group said they did not recognize the county supervisors’ authority because they do not believe the results of the 2020 election. “We’d like them replaced,” said Brenda Ireton, a pro-Trump Republican who said she viewed the board as “corrupt” and “bought and paid for” by unknown interests.
“I’m here today to put you on public notice and to inform you that you are not our elected officials,” declared Michelle Klann, from the podium she commandeered. “This is an act of insurrection. Due to all the voter fraud, you have never been formally voted in.” Klann is co-founder of a pro-Trump group called “Operation Restoration.”
When Joe Biden won Maricopa County in 2020 — and, with it, Arizona — Trump supporters used baseless fraud claims to try to pressure or frighten elected leaders into changing the county results. Since that 2020 vote, the Maricopa supervisors — most of whom are Republicans — have faced conspiracy theories and death threats for signing off on the results and refusing to go along with Trump’s efforts to overturn the outcome.
Now, with another presidential election looming and Arizona again likely to be pivotal, the incident at the county board meeting revives fears of threats and violence directed at officials responsible for the election.
It is a gross mistake to ignore Trump’s threats and warnings of violence. Again and again, they have been proven to be real and dangerous.
Remember the presidential debate in 2020 when Trump was asked to repudiate violence by white supremacists and the Proud Boys? Trump responded by not telling the Proud Boys to “stand down” as had been suggested, but instead telling them to “stand back and stand by.”
Trump apologists then claimed Trump was merely adding a Trumpian flourish to innocent remarks. But just months later, the Proud Boys — who interpreted Trump’s comments as a call to action — played a central role in the Capitol insurrection.
Many other January 6 defendants interpreted Trump’s various comments as calls to action, according to their legal defenses.
Donald Trump has been inciting violence since he ran for the presidency in 2016, but his calls are becoming more blatant and more dangerous.
Back in March 2016, before Trump became president, Republican Senator Marco Rubio connected Trump’s rhetoric with violent clashes in Chicago after a Trump rally was postponed. As Rubio said:
“The broader anger that now exists in the American political discourse is a direct result of the fact that words have consequences. That when you run for President of the United States or if you are President of the United States … you can’t just take on the attitude that I’m going to say whatever I want. You can’t say whatever you want. It has real-life consequences for people in this country, and all over the world. And we’re starting to see it bear out.”
As the incident a few weeks ago at the Maricopa County board of supervisors meeting reveals, Rubio’s warning has become ever more relevant and ominous.
Part of Trump’s election strategy is to actively incite violence.
Every perpetrator of that violence must be held fully accountable under the law —including the person inciting it.
Robert Reich is a professor at Berkeley and was secretary of labor under Bill Clinton. You can find his writing at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
