29% of Republican Voters Believe They Will Resort to Violence to 'Save the Country'

20% want Trump to do 'anything it takes' to put himself back into the White House.

Courtesy of Al Jazeera

Mass right-wing hysteria fed by the local Rwandan media kicked off one of the most brutal moments in the history of humankind 30 years ago — the genocide committed by majority Hutus against the minority Tutsis. Over 87 days, 800,000 Tutsis, moderate Hutus, and a smaller ethnic group, the Twa, were butchered mostly by soldiers and Hutu neighbors with machetes. Entire families were ripped from their homes and beheaded on front lawns.

We don’t hear much about this tragedy these days; probably because it happened in Africa; perhaps because the world didn’t do much but just kind of watched, spellbound by the violence. We still don’t hear much about it, even though the flash-paper-like speed with which the killing commenced is something from which we could easily learn. On April 7th, the plane of the Rwandan president, Juvenal Habyarimana, was shot down, killing him.

Rwanda media had been, for years before that crash, laying the groundwork with the majority Hutus by reporting that everything wrong in Rwanda was because the Tutsis were sabotaging the country to keep the Hutus down. The Rwanda media showed Fox News and other right-wing entertainers in the U.S. how to build a narrative that could soothe people with hatred, plays to religion, and nationalistic fervor. Once the news broke that the president had been killed, many immediately suspected the Tutsis were to blame. The media in the country started shouting to the rooftops that the “Tutsis vermin had to die.” With the wreckage of the plane still smoking, the Rwandan army was already gunning down innocent Tutsis.

I am nervous, folks. Trump has eliminated Kamala Harris’s lead in the “blue wall” states, and his lead in the Sunbelt states is inching upward. Regardless of how delusional and extremist he gets, his following seems to keep growing. On top of that, a substantial minority of Republicans declare they will accept only one result — a Trump victory.

If Kamala somehow pulls out a victory, then they are stating they will not accept it. They will view her victory as their patriotic duty to fight. We are a big, violent, and heavily-armed country. We have a perverse obsession with guns and yet somehow regard our nation as holier than many others, like our way of life is somehow better, more pristine, more divine. It is that kind of delusion that makes a Rwandan-type reaction to a Trump loss or death a genuine possibility. 

Trump’s extremist rhetoric is worse than it has ever been, and the volume seems to be raised on it every day. His backers, formerly sane people, now laugh off his promise to use the military to go after his opponents. The wealthiest man in the world, with a Twitter following of 200 million people, lies openly from morning to night about the evil Democrats. He tells the world that Donald Trump is the savior and Kamala Harris is the devil. All of this over-heated rhetoric to cowardly queens like Lindsay Graham is just hyperbole, but to stupid people with nothing to lose and always just one scratch-off from high life, Trump’s words are calls to action.

800,000 died tragically and for no reason whatsoever in Rwanda over 87 days. If he loses, Trump-led raging could make those 87 days seem like a walk in the park. As I said, we are a violent, confused, gunned-up nation. The MAGidiots will regard his loss as the ultimate fix, and as they are telling us — they are ready to fight to “save their nation.”

Someone will have to pay for the state of our nation, and should Kamala somehow win, we need to seriously consider prosecuting those responsiblefor the dangers caused by this unbridled rhetoric.