Donald Trump: "2024 is the final battle"
If you didn’t get a chance to watch my commentary on Donald Trump’s Waco rally, you can do so here — and then read on for an accompanying essay.
David Koresh was a cult leader who convinced his followers that he was worth dying for because he was god. He delivered, and 76 people, including 28 children he sexually abused, went up in flames in Waco, Texas, on April 19, 1993.
Koresh died on national television after a 51-day siege that began when his cult opened fire on ATF agents serving a lawful warrant. Four federal agents were murdered. The siege at Waco was the headwaters of multiple acts of extremist violence, including Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols’ act of domestic terror that killed 168 people, including 19 children in a daycare. They wounded nearly 700 people during their Oklahoma City bombing attack.
On Saturday, Donald Trump went to Waco to celebrate extremism, threaten violence and murder, and radicalize militants who will strike in his name. He lit a fuse there, and it is burning down as we speak towards a point of unknown detonation. The only certainty is that it will come, and when it does, there will be death, blood, grief and suffering. When the day comes people will sit by their TVs or look at their screens in a state of paralysis asking the only question that will matter: who is to blame?
Donald Trump left a trail of breadcrumbs that will trace back to his Waco speech. There is no question around his intent.
He wants violence. He is summoning the furies. Will they come?
The crowd was extreme. One man waved a large banner that proclaimed “Trump or Death.” Those in the crowd held “Witch Hunt” signs. I wonder who was watching “Home Alone,” surrounded by guns, Tucker Carlson and imprisoned by right-wing algorithms? Who is filled with rage and ready to act? That is the clear point of Donald Trump’s speech. Everyone must understand this point. He wants chaos and mayhem so that he may claim to be its balm. He intends to run on strength. It’s either him or anarchy. It’s either Trump or blood.
Donald Trump wants to be the president of the United States again. Before that can happen he must be nominated for a third consecutive time by the Republican Party. Will they do it? Will the party of Lincoln pick Donald John Trump again? Does he seem like he is competent to command the nuclear triad?
What we are witnessing is the deterioration of a situation that has long been a national emergency. There is no response to Trump’s insanity from within the Republican Party. None. Zero. Nada. The result is an emasculated and defenestrated blob of cowardice, capitulation and accommodation left to quibble, despair and jockey for favor with the man they hate — yet obey like pets.