Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie briefly caught the media’s attention last week when he indicated that he’ll wage an unusually aggressive and hard-hitting campaign against Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. The media almost universally decried his actual chances of defeating Trump as the GOP nominee, but for a tiny flicker in time, it almost seemed plausible that someone from the political right could impose some type of deserved retribution on the criminal sociopath who has dominated our politics for the past seven years. Some even went so far as to suggest that Christie’s attacks might prompt other Republicans to follow suit.
Judging from the response by the GOP to Trump’s latest indictments, however, that’s never going to happen. Instead, the GOP initially (and with near-unanimity) resolved to deflect Trump’s culpability—not by defending his actions, mind you—but by playing the whataboutism game, which we’ll likely see continue for the remainder of the upcoming election cycle. Republicans intend to bombard the airwaves with fanciful accusations, carefully cultivated in their alternative media universe: charges of a “weaponized” Justice Department, imagined comparable “crimes” of Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, and the “tyranny” Trump’s prosecution purportedly represents. In short, Republicans are leaning into anything and everything that could inflame their thoroughly zombified and defiantly ignorant voter base.
This was to be expected. As reported by Shane Goldmacher writing for The New York Times, elected Republicans really had no other option. Their base doesn’t want facts, and they certainly don’t want the truth.
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Goldmacher writes:
After years of successive scandals, the immediate instincts of so many Republican voters are thoroughly ingrained. They snap to Mr. Trump’s defense, no matter how outrageous the charges are or who is making them — Democrats, the news media, local prosecutors or, now, federal ones.
That Republicans would seek refuge in whataboutism was predictable, if pathetic. But it took less than 48 hours before the tone from Republicans shifted from “what about what Democrats did” to a far more menacing “what we’ll do to Democrats when we get our chance.” As we are now witnessing, the criminal prosecution of Trump has provided a unique opportunity for Trump’s most ardent supporters to demonstrate their unyielding fealty to him—specifically their willingness to defend his every action, no matter how illegal or otherwise abhorrent, by adopting the language of incitement and threats of violence.
This “PSA”—from election denier, former television anchorwoman, and Arizona gubernatorial loser Kari Lake—was hardly a surprise:
Lake desperately wants to remain a relevant contender for elected office. If nothing else, it’s a huge cash cow for her, with speaking fees, television appearances, and book deals all waiting for her in the right-wing media universe. The Holy Grail in Lake’s mind is to be selected as Trump’s running mate, but even Trump might find her a potential liability too toxic to sustain his own brand. After all, he’s not a man who willingly shares the stage with anyone, which is why he chose the hapless Mike Pence in 2016.
But Lake’s thinly veiled call for violence to be meted out by Trump’s supporters against a federal prosecutor and President Biden was no anomaly. It was immediately echoed in the halls of the same Republican Congressional caucus that voted to reverse the results of the 2020 election. Republican Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona made this clear when he declared that Trump’s prosecution had ushered in a “war phase,” in which Republicans should demand “an eye for an eye.”
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And as reported by Jeff Sharlet for The Atlantic, Republican Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana quickly seized the opportunity to facilitate the terroristic violence he clearly anticipates. Higgins, a former SWAT officer and military policeman for the Louisiana National Guard, has a history of incitement on behalf of the far right, with deep and longstanding ties to both white supremacists like Richard Spencer and vigilante militia groups like the Oath Keepers—and a record of inflammatory rhetoric to match.
As Sharlet explains, this tweet from Higgins, issued in an immediate response to Trump’s indictments, is full of coded rhetoric that most Americans are wholly unfamiliar with.
Sharlet offers this translation
Note that Higgins begins with “President Trump,” not “former President Trump.” That Trump is still president has been a Higgins claim since at least 2021 …
…
“This is a perimeter probe from the oppressors,” Higgins’s tweet continues. The “oppressors,” of course, are members of the “cabal,” the tyranny decried by Three Percenters. Higgins has also referred to them as “Leviathan.” A perimeter probe is reconnaissance meant to determine your force’s strength.
“Hold,” Higgins writes. Another way of putting that is “Stand back and stand by.” The term rPOTUS translates as “the real president, Trump.” “rPOTUS has this” will be read by some QAnon adherents—and the many more Trumpists who don’t identify with Q even as its mythology has seeped into standard GOP rhetoric—as “Trust the plan.” Trump has it under control. Everything is happening for a reason. “God wins.”
…
Then comes the phrase that mystified those who don’t spend their weekends “training” for insurrection or doomsday: “1/50K know your bridges.” 1:50,000 is a scale used on military maps. It’s also used on some U.S. Geological Survey maps, largely in relation to areas surrounding military installations. Know your bridges isn’t jargon or metaphor. For the militia-minded, it means knowing the approaches to your location—especially bridges, which can be seized, much the way Canadian far-right truckers blockaded the Ambassador Bridge to Detroit in 2022.
In short, what the congressman is doing is telegraphing tactical instructions to far-right militia members for a violent, armed assault on a federal courthouse. Just think about that for a minute.
Sharlet’s point is that Democrats cannot treat this type of incitement as outlying or “fringe.” Simply mocking it is not an option: We must call it out, loudly, at every opportunity. He correctly observes that this is the kind of rhetoric that inevitably gets people killed, and we can expect it to continue right up to the point where that actually occurs. As New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has cogently pointed out, for the extremists of the Republican Party, Jan. 6 was merely a trial run. The real deal will come next year as the rhetoric escalates well beyond the ability of less-extreme Republicans to control.
Trump has clearly indicated that this is only the beginning.
Whatever occurs in Miami this week or Georgia this summer, Republicans have already cast their lot with the worst specimens our society has ever produced. But despite how powerful and righteous this violent rhetoric may make Republicans feel right now, at the same time, the stage is being set for an election that will effectively put to Americans a stark, straightforward question: Is this the kind of country you want to live in? One in which the mere act of enforcing the law implicates a violent response? One in which half the American public is under constant threat from these vicious reactionaries and racists, who just can’t cope with the fact that they aren’t getting their way?
Americans already answered that question in 2020 and again in 2022: They don’t want violence. They don’t want their lives controlled by armed goons driving pickup trucks up and down the streets, threatening to nullify elections and attack courthouses. They don’t want Trump. They don’t want fascism. They really don’t.
But that’s all that Republicans have to offer.
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