Trump says 'treason.' His fans invoke violence. How attacks against Schiff are escalating online.

[Eugene]

Source: Washington Post

Trump says ‘treason.’ His fans invoke violence. How attacks against Schiff are escalating online.

By Isaac Stanley-Becker
Oct. 14, 2019 at 9:28 a.m. EDT

Hours after President Trump mused online about whether the Democratic lawmaker leading the impeachment inquiry should be “arrested for treason,” a 53-year-old mother of four in Wisconsin retweeted Trump’s post to her few hundred followers and added her own take.

“SHIFTY SHIFF NEEDS TO BE HUNG,” wrote Jean Spanbauer, a onetime supporter of President Barack Obama. She had adopted Trump’s epithet for Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), slightly misspelling his name.

“As you can see, my tweets are pretty passionate,” Spanbauer, who uses a different name online, said in an interview, adding that she doesn’t specifically wish anyone physical harm. “It hits very close to home for me. What the Democrats are doing to our president, to the office and to the people of this country is disgusting.”

As Trump and his allies have aimed increasingly caustic language at Schiff in recent days, the attacks have been echoed by supporters on social media who often take the message a step further — invoking physical violence against one of the most prominent Democrats overseeing the inquiry that now threatens Trump’s presidency.

The chain reaction represents a new test of the power of weaponized language to inspire physical violence. Over the summer, Trump faced criticism for employing anti-immigrant rhetoric that was parroted by the man accused of fatally shooting22 people at a Walmart in El Paso in August. In the fall of 2018, an avid Trump supporter mailed pipe bombs to prominent Democrats.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-says-treason-his-fans-invoke-violence-how-attacks-against-schiff-are-escalating-online/2019/10/14/9f613974-ec4c-11e9-9306-47cb0324fd44_story.html

[Thomas Hurt]

1. My sister has pretty much lost a friend due to Trump.

The woman has lost her job and is obsessed with the Trump. She is unable to talk about anything else with my sister.

They are fanatical. They are addicts.

[RainCaster]

2. A visit from the Secret Service might bring them back to reality

If a large fine, or jail time becomes the result of posting such violence online, the MAGA crowd might STFU.

[Newest Reality]

3. Too bad...

That, because it is by proxy, stochastic terrorism isn't an impeachable offense or a high crime.? Or, at least it doesn't seem to be.

Now, Charles Manson was a controversial and extreme case and also a media spectacle, which he played very well. It was ruled that when he manipulated and motivated a group to commit heinous crimes, he was responsible for the murders as well. That makes sense, but I consider El Donaldo to be doing the very same thing in the highest office in the land and on the national stage.

It seems that this is a pivotal, phase two point and it has the potential to unleash some major chaos. One can only imagine what phase three will be like. Why should it stop if Trump continues on his merry way to destroy the country and make himself the despotic ruler of the country?

He may have not directly made the video, but his rhetoric obviously encourages and inspires the content. By not emphatically and repeatedly denouncing it, he enables and encourages it. This is contextually an implicit endorsement. This is very, very dangerous.

[Mike 03]

4. The bots and fake accounts were out this morning on Twitter

I didn't look for attacks on Schiff but I saw many attacks against Chris Wallace by ultra-suspicious accounts. It gave me flashbacks to the summer of 2016.

[Karadeniz]

5. Needs to be hung, doesn't wish anyone physical harm. Stupid hypocrite.