Hartmann opined in an editorial that Trump has long admired dictators who weaponize civilian gangs to crush dissent. Will his next chapter involve unleashing his own militias to terrorize the American public? One of the most common characteristics of rule by an authoritarian who’s taken over a democracy is his use of unofficial civilian paramilitary groups and militia gangs to terrorize or even kill his political opponents.
Back in the day, Hitler had his Brownshirts, Mussolini his Blackshirts. The practice has since become far more widespread — routine, almost — as we can see across multiple formerly democratic nations taken over — by election — during the past three decades:
- Putin uses a nationwide biker gang called the Night Wolves, who terrorize and often kill people who speak out against him. He also used the Wagner Group for these purposes against high-profile political and business targets.
- In India, Narendra Modi is supported by a rightwing gang known as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) which is alleged to even lynch Modhi’s religious critics.
- Rodrigo Duterte, in the Philippines, had a group known as The Death Squad who murdered his political opponents, usually claiming they were drug dealers (police killed the actual drug dealers).
- Erdoğan’s Turkish goons are called the Ülkü Ocakları, aka the Gray Wolves, who often burst into homes in the middle of the night to beat suspected dissidents and journalists.
- In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro had multiple rightwing groups who intimidated and killed people who offended him, the Escritório do Crime or Crime Office being the most notorious.
- Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro’s paramilitary rightwing thugs are a group called the Colectivos, famous for assaulting people in broad daylight, kidnappings, and even burning people out of their homes.
- In Hungary, Viktor Orbán relies on several civilian vigilante groups to terrorize gays, liberals, immigrants, and Roma people: The Hungarian Guard (Magyar Gárda), Outlaws' Army (Betyársereg), and the Legio Hungaria.
Which raises the question: Does Trump plan to do the same as the rightwing authoritarians he has so often visited, praised, and sought to emulate in other ways?
After all, he already considers himself part of the international strongman club:
Jair Bolsonaro fled to Mar-a-Lago when he was accused of sedition and Trump just invited him to his inauguration; Bob Woodward says Trump has been having private phone conversations with Putin for at least the past two years (as has, reportedly, Musk); Orbán visited Mar-a-Lago just a few weeks ago; Trump has often praised Modi (calling him a “total killer”); and expressed admiration for Duterte, who he said did “an unbelievable job on the drug problem.”
And he already has three major (and dozens of minor) white supremacist militia groups who openly support him:
- At Enrique Tarrio’s trial for sedition at the Capitol, the federal prosecutor, Conor Mulroe, was blunt:
“The Proud Boys were lined up behind Donald Trump and willing to commit violence on his behalf. … These defendants saw themselves as Donald Trump’s army, fighting to keep their preferred leader in power no matter what the law or the courts had to say about it.”
- The Three Percenters have provided security for Trump’s rallies and many members were involved in the 2020 insurrection attempt.
- Oath Keepers provided personal security for Roger Stone and Alex Jones on January 6th, as well as for Trump at rallies in Texas, Minnesota, and Washington, DC.
Is this why Trump is planning to let so many violent January 6th rightwing gang members out of prison?
Is he about to unleash a wave of violence and terror against Americans he feels have wronged him, or who are queer, Black, Hispanic, or “libtards”?
Will he be stacking the Justice Department and FBI with officials who will look the other way if/when violence and civil rights violations start breaking out all across the United States?
And, if so, how will our media handle it? Will Trump succeeded in normalizing it or distracting us from it, as the leaders mentioned above have in their countries? Will America’s rightwing media cheer it on?
We may well find out sooner than we’d like.
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