“Perhaps no single person has done more to normalize political violence than Trump himself. As I noted in May, he appears to see physical violence as a means to demonstrate strength, as well as a source of psychological comfort. ‘It makes me feel so good to hit ‘sleazebags’ back—much better than seeing a psychiatrist (which I never have!),’ he claimed on Twitter in November 2012. As civil unrest spread earlier this year after the police killing of George Floyd, Trump inflamed the situation by tweeting ‘when the looting starts, the shooting starts’ and threatening to send the military into major U.S. cities to suppress the protests” writes Matt Ford in The New Republic.

“Trump’s tendency toward hyperbole only makes things worse. He casts every political setback or policy defeat as part of a nefarious threat against the country and his presidency. During the impeachment saga last year, Trump described the proceedings as part of a ‘coup d’état’ and shared warnings that his removal from office could lead to ‘civil war.’ As his poll numbers plummeted earlier this year, he grew increasingly strident in falsely claiming that Democrats would rig the November election through mass voter fraud. The underlying message appears to be that he is the only rightful leader of the nation, and that any efforts to remove or replace him are not only inherently illegitimate but an attack on the United States itself.”