We have been discussing the rising threats against Trump supporters, lawyers, and officials in recent weeks from Democratic members are calling for blacklists to the Lincoln Project leading a a national effort to harass and abuse any lawyers representing the Republican party or President Trump. Others are calling for banning those “complicit” from college campuses while still others are demanding a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” to “hold Trump and his enablers accountable for the crimes they have committed.”
Now, Daily Beast editor-at-large Rick Wilson has added his own call for “humiliation,” “incarceration” and even ritualistic suicides for Trump supporters in an unhinged, vulgar column. Wilson declared “[o]nly exposure, pain, humiliation, and (inshallah) incarceration will lead to a moment of reckoning for the GOP.”
Not surprisingly, Wilson is a key advisor to the Lincoln Project which was blocked recently on Twitter for abusive doxxing efforts directed at Republican lawyers. His column captures the level of hateful rhetoric fueled by the Lincoln Project, which is funded by thousands of lawyers despite its attacks on fellow members of the bar for their representation.
“Remember, the Trump GOP is shorn of all ideological and philosophical pretense, and even when Trump leaves office, it’s not over. ‘His cultists’ reign of terror will shape elected GOP members as long as he and his foul spawn walk the earth unpunished. Only exposure, pain, humiliation, and (inshallah) incarceration will lead to a moment of reckoning for the GOP. It should start at the top and work down from there.”
Wilson notes that he is not interested in the “reconciliation” part of “truth and reconciliation,” declaring a “hearty f— no” to people calling for reconciliation. Inside he called for the “motherf—ers” to consider “seppuku.”
Just as I recently criticized Trump counsel Joe diGenova for his rhetoric about drawing and quartering Chris Krebs, I will assume that Wilson is not seriously calling for ritualistic suicides. However, he is clearly calling for retaliation against Trump supporters as the Lincoln Project has carried out in its campaign.
Others like Elie Mystal, The Nation’s justice correspondent, have called for a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” to investigate “[a]ll of these moral and ethical failures … and that’s before we get into the actual statutory crimes potentially committed by Trump, his administration, his enablers, and his family.”
The call for a commission to establish the truth of past controversies is ironic given Mystal’s abuse of teenager Nicholas Sandmann. We previously discussed the case and the example of one such segment involving “Above the Law” writer Joe Patrice in his interview with Mystal, where he attacked this 16 year old boy as a racist. Patrice agreed with Mystal’s objections to Sandmann wearing his “racist [MAGA] hat.” They also objected to Sandmann doing interviews trying to defend himself with Mystal deriding how this “17-year-old kid makes the George Zimmerman defense for why he was allowed to deny access to a person of color.” Putting aside the fact that Sandmann was not denying “access to a person of color,” Mystal and Patrice were comparing this high school student to a man who was accused of murdering an unarmed African American kid and even assailing his effort to clear his name as the media continued to label him a racist. Mystal continued to slam Sandmann in postings on “Above the Law.” In one such posting, Mystal derided Sandmann for filing for defamation. Various media outfits later apologized or settled with Sandmann for their false reporting.
What is most striking about these views is how disconnected they are to the actual election.
Instead a “blue wave” and the widely predicted Democratic takeover of both houses, Republicans picked up a sizable number of seats in the House where Democrats have been reduced to the thinnest margin since World War II. The Republicans may retain the Senate and won handily in many state races across the country. Roughly 74 million people voted for Trump. I was not one of them, but that is roughly half of this nation. Yet, these writers continue to write as if the nation is now unified in rejecting the policies and priorities of the Trump Administration. It is the distortive effect of existing entirely in siloed media spaces where an alternative reality can be maintained and fostered.
My greatest concern is how the media remain detached not only from roughly half of the country but from reality. It has decided that it will cater to literally one half of the country and foster openly biased narratives of what is still unfolding in this country. As I previously discussed, the loss is considerable since the public now has a deep and widening distrust for the media. The result is that our media is no longer viewed as a place for citizens to resolve questions over things like contested elections. There is only rage where reason once prevailed.