After the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk last September, Utah governor Stephen Cox made an emotional appeal against the increasingly widespread political violence in the United States: “We have to find a way to tone down the rhetoric, otherwise things will get worse.” Donald Trump refuted this almost immediately, placing all the blame on the left in a highly polarized eulogy at that funeral. Last Thursday, the president posted messages on his social network calling for the death penalty for “seditious behavior” for a group of Democratic lawmakers who called on the country’s military not to carry out illegal orders.
The group of Democratic representatives and senators, all veterans of the armed forces and led by Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin, had recorded a video in which they accused the Trump administration of “pitting our military and our intelligence community professionals against the citizens of this country”, and warned that voters’ trust in the military is at stake.
Trump has made public comments in the past, including in speeches to soldiers and senior commanders, in which he referred to the “enemy within” and suggested that Democratic-run cities could serve as training camps for soldiers. Since June, the US president has ordered the deployment of National Guard soldiers in half a dozen cities across the country under opposition command. The Republican also ordered a military campaign in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific to attack suspected drug-trafficking vessels, in which at least 21 boats were sunk and at least 83 people died in bombings that experts and human rights advocates say are illegal.
In the video, Democratic politicians directly address troops and Secret Service agents to remind them that they “can and “must” “disobey illegal orders.”
The message from the opposition lawmakers had unleashed the fury of the Republican Party on Capitol Hill. And, from this Thursday, also that of the American president himself. In two posts on his social network, Truth, Trump writes, in his trademark, all-caps style as he shouts, “SEDITIONAL BEHAVIOR, which may be punishable by DEATH!”
“This is really bad and dangerous for our country. We cannot tolerate those words remaining like this. SEDITIONAL BEHAVIOR OF TRAITORS!!! DO YOU LOCATE THEM???” “It’s called SEDICIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. Each of these traitors to our country should be ARRESTED AND PROSECUTED,” declares the American president. “Let’s hang them. GEORGE WASHINGTON (the nation’s founder) WOULD DO IT.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson defended the president’s comments. In Capitol Hill statements, he argued that Trump was simply “defining the crime of sedition” and criticized Democrats’ behavior in recording the video as “intolerable.” But Democrats were angry: “When Donald Trump uses words like execution and treason, some of his supporters may well take it literally. He is lighting a match in a country drenched in political gasoline.”
In subsequent statements, the White House sought to ease tensions and assured that Trump would not call for the execution of Democratic lawmakers. But he also blamed the episode on the opposition party for encouraging soldiers and intelligence agents to “disobey the president’s legitimate orders.” “If (troops) heard this radical message from serving members of Congress, it could inspire chaos and incite violence, and it certainly could disrupt the chain of command.”
