Does 2nd Trump Assassination Attempt Increase Risk of Civil War?
Conservatives see an embattled ex-president hounded by the left, the media, a weaponized legal system, and now two would-be assassins. The Left sees a MAGA 'threat to democracy.' What could go wrong?
2nd ‘CIVIL WAR CHRONICLES’
"You need to have weapons to take on the government, you need F-15s and maybe some nuclear weapons…" JOE BIDEN, July 2021.
Well, in response to Biden, it’s not nearly that simple.
Would-be Trump assassin being captured in South Florida.
2nd CIVIL WAR CHRONICLES - Welcome to my new series on the potential for civil conflict in America, how it might come about, and how we can prevent it. All based on current events.
This is a controversial topic I have been following for a few years now. I was even censored by Big Tech for even discussing the issue online.
But the issue is real and it just doesn't go away. In my view, the upcoming 2024 election will only increase the danger, regardless of who wins.
Sadly, most of those discussing this topic in the mainstream media, academia, and security circles, automatically and instinctively, blame conservatives and Trump for the danger.
Meanwhile, Republicans point to the constant rhetoric calling Trump an ‘existential threat to democracy,’ and half of the Americans who support him ‘MAGA extremists.’
EVERYTHING IS POLITICAL
AXIOS noted soon after the first assassination '"attempt on former President Trump, that it was shocking — but not surprising.
It explained:
Why it matters: Everything in America has turned political. Everything political turned visceral. And everything visceral turned into the possibility of unspeakable violence like this.
Everyone sees it, feels it, predicts it. Some actively agitate for it on social media and TV. Now, we have it. Again. And again. And again. Intelligence officials privately warn of more to come.
We've watched it build from a lunatic shooting a member of Congress in the head, to the bullets sprayed at members of Congress playing ball, to the brutality and violence on Jan. 6, to a crazed man pounding to near-death the husband of Nancy Pelosi.
And now a bullet was just inches from killing Trump.
I will add to that now a second crazed leftist Trump-hater was ready to try again.
NPR recently added to this thinking:
Beyond incidents that qualify as terroristic, however, there is a growing sense that everyday political violence has been on the rise. For two years, the Bridging Divides Initiative and CivicPulse have conducted quarterly surveys of local elected officials to assess the level of harassment, threats and violence they experience. It has found baseline levels of hostility against these officials to be consistently high.
“It's part of the larger atmospherics that we have in this country, where nearly anything you do could be perceived as having some kind of political connection, no matter the kind of position you may have,” said Jason Blazakis, director of the Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.
TRYING TO KILL TRUMP
Former President Donald Trump just survived yet another assassination attempt by a would-be shooter with a rifle hiding in the bushes at Trump’s Palm Beach golf course.
While the suspect was not able to fire any shots thanks to an alert secret service agent who fired on him, the incident raises more questions about the Secret Service as well as serious concerns over heightened political violence.
And since the latest would-be assassin is a confirmed left wing radical, this elevates the tension. The attempted assassin, in a self-published book, even urged Iran to kill Trump.
DEMOCRAT RHETORIC AGAINST TRUMP AND MAGA
But this didn’t stop former Secretary of State and Democrat nominee for president, Hillary Clinton from spouting vitriol against Trump the day after the attempted shooting.
Apparently, she didn’t get the memo that Democrats were supposed to gaslighting Republicans by blaming Trump rhetoric for his assassination attempt not inciting more herself.
She said Monday during an interview with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow that Donald Trump is a “danger to our country and the world.”
Seemingly living an alternate upside-down universe, Clinton went on outrageously claim that the press was “merciless” in going after President Biden, but treated Trump with kid gloves.
NOTE TO HILLARY - THE DEMOCRAT-ALIGNED MEDIA ONLY WENT AFTER BIDEN VERY RECENTLY. AND ONLY WHEN THE DEMOCRAT POWER BROKERS, LIKE YOU, DECIDED HE NEEDED TO BE REPLACED.
Clinton then escalated the rhetoric further when she argued that in addition to indicting Russians involved in election interference, Americans who engage in spreading foreign propaganda should also face consequences, possibly through civil or criminal charges.
Here we see Democrats wanting to further weaponize the criminal justice system against Americans that disagree with them, under the guise of fighting ‘disinformation.’
Since Trump's election in 2016, Democrats, including Harris' own campaign, have made a regular habit of calling the leader of the opposition a "threat to our democracy." Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-N.Y.) menacingly summed up his party's message in a televised interview with former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psakilast November: Trump, he said, "has to be eliminated." David Plouffe, a senior advisor to the Harris campaign, is on record saying "It is not enough to simply beat Trump. He must be destroyed thoroughly. His kind must not rise again."
Some prominent Democrats, including President Joe Biden, failed 2016 Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, and former Missouri senator Claire McCaskill, have compared Trump to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. So have numerous legacy media outlets that lean strongly Democratic. In December, Harris said in a televised interview that they were "right" to do so. In January, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) called Trump "a traitor to the United States of America." In May, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) falsely accused Trump supporters of preparing for a "civil war."
Biden has further labeled Trump and his supporters a "threat" to "this nation," "the very soul of this country," "the very foundations of our republic," and "everything America stands for." In a widely publicized private donor call that was leaked just five days before the first assassination attempt against Trump in July, the incumbent president announced that "It's time to put Trump in a bullseye," a remark Biden later acknowledged to NBC News as a "mistake."
Of course some Republicans, and even Trump himself often use heated rhetoric, especially concerning Harris-Walz’s far-left radicalism, but in my view, Democrats and other Trump-haters have uniquely turned this election into an existential battle for democracy.
Where could this lead?
WIDESPREAD POLITICAL VIOLENCE
Well, we just saw it again in Palm Beach. And what more can happen?
One writer noted, while a civil war erupting from current events may not look like our first civil war, it could look, “ something like a combination of the riots that roiled the country in the 1960s, mixed with anti-federal-government violence of the sort that gained ground among militias and sovereign citizen movements in the 1990s, and the mass shootings that have desecrated the 2000s, all mixed together.”
Having witnessed deadly civil strife overseas, I can attest that this is a worrisome proposition.
HEIGHTENED SECURITY FOR NEXT JANUARY 6
Echoing the growing concern about potential political violence, (and perhaps the Democrat desire to make it seem only Trump supporters could cause chaos), Team Biden announced last week that the upcoming Jan. 6 election certification “has been designated a National Special Security Event by Biden’s Secretary of Homeland Security.”
“National Special Security Events are events of the highest national significance,” Special Agent in Charge of the Secret Service's Dignitary Protective Division said.
WARGAMING A CONTESTED ELECTION WITH MILITARY TAKING SIDES
Last week I wrote about how the military leadership could respond to a contested election. And what that could entail. Below we see a new documentary ‘War Game,’ coming to streaming next week, that examines a potential scenario just like that, where members of the U.S. military defect to support a losing candidate.
Of course the documentary, while having some Republican participants, leans left. But it should worthwhile watching to better understand how their view of a crisis like this might play out.
War Game
Streaming release date -September 27
“They have 6 hours to save democracy as the country teeters on the brink of civil war. This real-life political thriller imagines a nation-wide insurrection in which members of the U.S. military defect to support a losing candidate, while the sitting President and advisors—played by an all-star roster of officials from the last 5 U.S. administrations—war game the crisis in the situation room.”
STAY TUNED FOR MORE ON THAT.
Meanwhile, here are a couple of articles that appeared just after I wrote my last piece on how our military leaders might respond to a contested election. I focused on on the role of the National Guard.
The first piece expands on what I discussed, as well as delves more into the Insurrection Act and Posse Comitatus.
IN THE NEWS
Here’s your National Guard primer, from how it differs from the rest of the military to limits state governors—and presidents—have on calling on its troops.
ONE KEY POINT
When former President Trump talks about “sending in the National Guard” to deal with hot-button issues, how might it happen?
A. There are a few possibilities. Posse comitatus is important here, because when federal troops are acting under federal command, they usually can’t work as law enforcement. But a sympathetic governor could take cues from the White House and activate their own National Guard to address issues within their state borders—or perhaps loan their Guard to a different state that requests it.
And then there was this overlooked nugget:
Virginia Guard Says It's Investigating Guardsmen Running a Rural Anti-Government Militia
The Virginia National Guard confirmed that it has launched an investigation into two soldiers who have espoused anti-government views while running a sanctioned county militia in the state.
Last week, Military.com reported that two Guardsmen -- Staff Sgts. Daniel Abbott and Alexandra Griffeth -- are running the Campbell County Militia, which operates in the countryside around Lynchburg, Virginia, with the blessing of Campbell County's Board of Supervisors.
The County's Board of Supervisors officially recognized the militia "as a barrier against a tyrannical government" in a six to one vote in 2020.
STAY TUNE FOR MORE OF MY ‘CIVIL WAR CHRONICLES.’
Paul Crespo is the President of the Center for American Defense Studies, Managing Editor of American Liberty Defense News, and Managing Partner of SPECTRE Global Risk. As a Marine Corps officer, he led Marines, served aboard ships in the Pacific and jumped from helicopters and airplanes.
He was also a military attaché with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) at U.S. embassies worldwide.
He later ran for congress, taught political science, wrote for a major newspaper and co-hosted his own radio show. A graduate of Georgetown, London and Cambridge universities, he brings decades of experience and insight to the issues that most threaten our American liberty – at home and abroad.
With the left panicking and trying to get legislation passed making militias illegal it is easy to see their angst and perceived pushback against their Globalist agenda. What will be telling is the response to their ginned up disruption between the election and inauguration when 15 million useful idiots facing deportation will be used to destabilize as a justification to impose heavy top down control
Interesting perspective on the illegal aliens.