Threatening to execute Democratic officials, Donald Trump tacitly acknowledges he can't beat them politically
As the president acts in increasingly erratic and dangerous ways, opponents should highlight his crazed rhetoric and the fundamental weakness driving it
This piece was previously published at The Hot Screen.
Last Tuesday, six congressional Democrats with military and intelligence backgrounds released a video intended for American service members, in which they stressed that those in uniform should not follow unlawful orders. In response, President Trump on Thursday unleashed threats of retributive violence against these senators and representatives, calling them “traitors” and their actions “seditious,” and asserting that their behavior was “punishable by DEATH!”
All this because members of Congress urged members of the U.S. military to. . . . obey the law.
Seeking to act as judge, jury, and — apparently literally — executioner of political opponents, Donald Trump instead stuck a shiv into the swiftly decaying body of his own presidency. His threats should be understood as conveying two main things: his increasing political weakness, and a metastasizing embrace of intimidation and violence to maintain power as his weakness is laid bare.
First, his poll numbers — not just in terms of popularity, but in public trust to run the economy and deal with immigration issues — have been dropping precipitously over the past few months. The GOP just got its elephantine ass handed to it by a Democratic Party that is even more unpopular than he is; on top of this, the off-year elections also massively discredited the canard that his 2024 election represented a fundamental conservative re-alignment of U.S. politics.
Underlying this declining support is a damning reality. Inflation has been creeping up; job growth has been slowing; consumer confidence is reaching epic lows. It’s not just public perceptions shifting in a way that might be easily remedied; Donald Trump is actively running the economy into the ground. And on top of this, he continues to escalate a deportation regime of savage cruelty despite growing public opposition; the more that Americans see him deliver on what he promised, the more they’re sickened with an epic case of buyer’s remorse.
Beyond this, members of his own party are beginning to waver in their lockstep support for him in so-far-limited but still significant ways — a cracking of support that felt fantastically remote even six months ago. The Trump administration cover-up of the Jeffrey Epstein files has been the central arena for this dissent to play out, with a near-unanimous House vote to compel release of the files demonstrating that Republicans might be starting to fear the wrath of voters more than the wrath of the president.
When Donald Trump fantasizes about killing those elected officials who dare to oppose him, he’s not just revealing a fundamental truth about his unfitness to occupy the White House (or what’s left of it after his recent demolition work): he’s confirming suspicions that he doesn’t actually have a political game plan to restore his popularity. He’s like a mobster who loses a card game, and rather than pay up, just decides to shoot his fellow players.
This is not to downplay the danger of this moment. A president who openly threatens to kill his opponents must be take seriously. I have no doubt that Donald Trump could compel federal agents to take the six Democrats into custody and throw them in jail. I am much less confident that he could actually strongarm the justice system into a successful prosecutions that ended up with the six Democrats being hanged until dead. But the clearly more imminent danger is the way the president is inciting violence against these Democrats — a fact already acknowledged by the party’s leadership, with Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer notifying Capitol Police of potential violence against the members. In his quest for dictatorial power, he seeks to mobilize extremist sympathizers to aid his cause — much as he did when he incited an insurrection of white nationalists and others on January 6.
But as others have already observed, it’s his weakness, not his strength, that is feeding his growing extreme behavior, including his appeals to violence. And this growing aura of violence is the other key context we should note around his threats against the lawmakers. I already noted how he’s presiding over a mass deportation regime that appears premised on terrifying millions of immigrants to leave the country. Beyond our borders, he’s engaging in wanton lawlessness: murdering dozens of men on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific based on false claims they posed imminent threats to the United States; amassing an armada off the coast of Venezuela in apparent preparation for starting a war for the express purpose of making him look strong; and just this week, he praised Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman while hideously excusing the latter’s complicity in the murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Yet Donald Trump’s desire to kill and dominate, and to put himself forward as a fearsome, bloodthirsty leader, sets him up for a huge fall (even as it presents a gruesome low for modern America). It would have been one thing if his threats had led to apologies or other admissions of fear from the targeted Democrats; but instead, they have refused to stand down, releasing a statement standing by their appeals to service members. Greg Sargent calls out a key line in their response — that “What’s most telling is that the President considers it punishable by death for us to restate the law.” As Sargent points out, these Democrats are “not backing down in the slightest in the face of Trump’s call for their execution. They’re treating Trump like *he’s* the violent criminal and the real threat to our Constitution order, which is absolutely correct. Keep polarizing this Dems.” Another way of putting this is that the Democrats are using the president’s own deranged propensity for violence as a weapon against him, and working to make this derangement the actual issue. Perversely from the perspective of his obvious intent, Trump’s words have made the Democrats look like fearless badasses standing up against a would-be dictator. And unless Donald Trump actually goes ahead and arrests them, their defiance will make him look not only weak, but crazy, which for political purposes just adds to the weakness pile-on.
And a larger point should be clear here (and it’s one that Sargent alludes to with his “keep polarizing” comment): Democrats should not fear to escalate conflict with Donald Trump, despite the very real and very deadly power he possesses as chief executive. Key to defeating Donald Trump — and by defeating, I mean fracturing his coalition while energizing a strong majority into open defiance of his lawless regime and the enabling GOP — is to press the fight against him in ways that force him to reveal his essential monstrosity.
It seems well within the realm of possibility that in the coming months, Donald Trump will engage in behavior that only accelerates the erosion of his public support while posing real danger to the well-being of the nation. It is not necessary for Democrats and other opponents of Donald Trump to have a perfectly conceived game plan, only that they be guided by certain increasingly obvious principles. Donald Trump is fundamentally unpopular; Donald Trump is a failing president; Donald Trump attempts to hide his fundamental weakness (as measured in terms of traditional political support like falling poll numbers and a fracturing coalition) by asserting dictatorial powers that defy our democratic, rule-of-law form of government; Donald Trump will very likely escalate his lawless behavior as a means to symbolically but also substantively cover up his weakness.
In such a contest, democratic victory inevitably rests in great part on faith — that the lodestars of defiance, solidarity, and opposition to violence and lawlessness will light a path to curbing his power and even driving him from office before we have to suffer too many more years of this national defilement.