Violence Is Us

The Trump Doctrine: Violence Is Us

The message is clear—be afraid.

David Corn

The military assault on Venezuela, the shooting of a Minneapolis woman by an ICE agent, the launch of the White House’s new revisionist website about January 6—these three events convey a powerful and unsettling message from Donald Trump and his crew: Violence is ours to use, at home and abroad, to get what we want.

In each episode, the Trump administration has employed or embraced violence that seemingly violates the law and extends beyond ordinary state powers. The US military attack on Caracas and kidnapping of its repressive and fraudulently elected president, Nicolás Maduro, violated the Constitution and international law. Absent an imminent threat from Venezuela—and none existed—Trump did not have the constitutional authority to unilaterally launch an act of war against the country. Yet he deployed the tremendous force of the United States’ war machine to dethrone and abduct Maduro, contending that he was some sort of drug lord. But that’s not a legitimate justification for a military attack.

The horrific killing in Minneapolis of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good was unwarranted and arguably criminal. The initial videos make it look like murder. Yet the Department of Homeland Security, before it could investigate, quickly defended and justified the officer’s actions. It claimed that Good was one of a group of “violent rioters” who “weaponized her vehicle” and attempted to “run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them.” The department called this “an act of domestic terrorism” and maintained the ICE officer, “fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots.” In other words, this was right thing to do.

On those videos, though, it did not seem like Good was aiming to mow down ICE officers with her car. She was trying to flee the ICE agents. When the officer shot at her, the car was moving away from him. Initial reporting indicated the officer did not follow ICE protocol. Still, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem praised the officer for acting so fast and stated, “This goes to show the assaults that our ICE officers and law enforcement are under every single day.” That is, well done, sir.

Trump affirmed the sentiment in a social media post in which he falsely stated the victim was “a professional agitator” who “viciously ran over the ICE officer” and blamed the shooting on the “Radical Left.”

Neither Noem nor Trump expressed any concern or any sympathy for Good. They were saying that ICE had the authority and justification to use lethal force in this situation. It was more than a hint: Mess with ICE, and this could happen to you.

The day before the ICE shooting, the Trump White House honored—yes, honored—the January 6 rioters. It unveiled an official White House website that ranks as one of the most excessive acts of government gaslighting in modern American history. The site hails Trump for issuing “sweeping blanket pardons and commutations for nearly 1,600 patriotic Americans” who were in the mob that assaulted the Capitol to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory. The site denounces Rep. Nancy Pelosi and the House select committee that investigated the riot for having fabricated “an ‘insurrection’ narrative” and pinning “all blame” on Trump.

This site is loaded with absurd falsehoods about January 6. It maintains that the “Democrats masterfully reversed reality after January 6, branding peaceful patriotic protesters as ‘insurrectionists’ and framing the event as a violent coup attempt orchestrated by Trump…In truth, it was the Democrats who staged the real insurrection by certifying a fraud-ridden election.” And it presents an utterly phony timeline of the day, asserting that when peaceful “patriots” marched to the Capitol, police officers responded with “provocative tactics” and “violent force” that “turned a peaceful demonstration into chaos”—and that Trump repeatedly called for calm. None of that is true. In fact, once the melee began, 187 minutes passed before Trump urged his supporters to withdraw from the Capitol.

The website is a laughable fraud. But it’s troubling beyond being an Orwellian assault on the truth. This site signals that Trump and his team not only accept the violence of that day; they celebrate the domestic terrorists who were part of the marauding horde. These are our people, the White House is declaring. These violent thugs are with us—and we’re with them.

The Trump gang’s embrace of violence is not subtle. On Monday night, Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, spelled it out on CNN. Asked by host Jake Tapper if the Trump administration might use military force to seize Greenland, he refused to rule it out, and remarked, “Nobody’s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland.”

He then shared what might be called the Trump Doctrine: “We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

In short, might makes right. This was a not-too-veiled threat against…well, everyone, including foreign governments and all people within the United States. If the Trump administration has the power to do something, it will. Implied in this stance is the exercise of violence. Either in Greenland or in the homeland. Those who do not bend to Trump’s will—or Miller’s—can expect to feel their violent wrath.

In those two sentences, Miller was saying that there is no rule of law. The world, instead, is governed only by force. That means violence. This ugly and dark stance is an attack on the fundamental concept of rules-based civilization. It is profoundly anti-democratic. It ignores such niggling matters as rights, societal order, and the public good. All that counts is who has the bigger or better club to swing.

An essential element of a police state is the excessive use and threat of violence, and in the past few days the nation has seen such displays. As Trump reaches the end of the first year of his return to power, he and his lieutenants are demonstrating their willingness to deploy force beyond its legitimate use to achieve their aims. The warning is clear and intentional: We are violent. Beware.