HATE SPEECH AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE

Many of us probably remember the old adage: "Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never harm me." At a personal level, among kids growing up, there might be some truth to that. On a national level, however, evidence indicates that words, when inserted into inflammatory speech patterns can be dangerous and have historically preceded horrific genocides. We all had the unfortunate experience of suffering through the occasional uncontrolled rants from former President Donald Trump. For a while, after he left office, Mr. Trump's erratic behavior was masked, numbed and normalized by the political fatigue permeating the media and the public. But ever since he was issued multiple indictments, and since he decided to become the primary candidate for his party's nomination in next year's presidential contest, things changed. His words took a violent turn - like calling for former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley to be executed, mocking a potentially fatal assault on a congressional spouse and urging police to shoot shoplifters - suggest a line has been crossed. For the bulk of the time after he was elevated to national political prominence, Donald Trump openly expressed his disdain for migrants at our Southern border. He referred to them as rapists and criminals, suggested they were not people, but animals from shit hole countries, infesting our country like rats, and he actually suggested that border patrol agents should shoot migrants who attempted to illegally cross the border. More recently, during an interview for "The National Pulse," he claimed that undocumented immigrants were "poisoning the blood of our country." This statement comes straight from Adolph Hitler's "Mein Kampf," which led to a Nazi rallying cry that translates to "Blood and Soil," replicated by Neo-Nazis and white nationalists during the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. His incendiary rants against judges adjudicating his multiple indictments in Georgia, Florida, New York and Washington have become daily occurrences. Mr. Trump routinely refers to prosecutors as "a team of thugs." He called one potential witness "a gutless pig," and accused African American judges of "racism." Apologists for the former president point to his First Amendment rights. However, "Freedom of Speech" is not unlimited. In "Brandenburg v. Ohio" the Supreme Court, in 1969, concluded that a call for violence or mob action could be punished if it "is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action." It seems reasonable to believe that many of Mr. Trump's utterances have crossed that line. Moreover, given his prominent position in our current political climate and the presence of his dedicated following, many of his public statements are outright dangerous. To quote well-known conservative attorney George Conway, husband of Kellyanne Conway, who worked for Trump from 2016 to 2020: "Donald Trump is profoundly psychopathic in the way he expresses himself, and he is getting worse!" Let's revisit some historical cases. The Holocaust did not start with the gas chambers, but with hate speech against a minority. Before Jews were driven out of their schools, their jobs, their homes; before the synagogues, shops and businesses were destroyed; and before there were ghettos and camps, words were used to stoke the fires of hate. Words were ultimately used as incitement to genocide. Six million perished. The Cambodian genocide was preceded by hateful discourse, systematically dubbing intellectuals, city dwellers, political opponents as well as ethnic and religious minorities as the enemy of the people. The Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot killed 1.5 to 2 million Cambodians during the time he was in power, from 1975 to 1979. The 1994 genocide instigated by the majority Hutus in Rwanda took place after decades of hate speech, exacerbated ethnic tensions by spreading unfounded rumors, and dehumanizing the minority Tutsis. More than one million were killed in less than three months. The Srebrenica genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina was facilitated by constant nationalist propaganda demonizing the Bosnian Muslim population. Approximately 8,000 targeted Muslim men and boys were killed during a war which eventually ended up killing 100,000. The question often asked is: "Can it happen here?" People familiar with the historic backdrop to these and other genocides will most likely respond: "Unfortunately, yes, it can!" Verbal attacks on the judiciary have already resulted in a 400% increase in threats to federal judges - 4,000 reported incidences in 2020 alone. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the toxic combination of political polarization, anti-immigrant sentiment and the growth of technologies that help spread propaganda on line have grown the number of recognized hate groups to a historic high of 1020, a 30% increase over 2014. Some of us are still haunted by the Charlottesville rally during which torch bearing Neo-Nazis, white nationalists and members of the Ku Klux Klan were chanting: "Jews will not replace us." To which then President Trump responded: "There were fine people on both sides." You can't have it both ways. Respect for human dignity should not require a choice. Theo Wierdsma