Xenophobia and revenge are dominant strains in the life and politics of Donald Trump. Over many years he has stirred hostility toward people who diverge from the racial or sexual mainstream, while in his last campaign he declared repeatedly to followers, “I am your retribution”.
Both these attributes featured in the president’s formal statement after the shooting of a young disciple, the online influencer Charlie Kirk, last week. Before any suspect had been identified he blamed the shooting on “hateful and despicable” demonising of people on his side of politics by what he called the radical left.
Trump’s political appointments as FBI chiefs, Kash Patel (director) and his deputy, Dan Bongino – both leading lights in his re-election campaign – were the classic Keystone cops of this episode. They wrongly announced an early breakthrough, arrived late on the investigation scene and claimed credit for a successful arrest by state police.
Meanwhile a whole phalanx of Trump administration enablers and acolytes got busy stirring up public disquiet by declaring to anyone listening that “this is war” – just a week or so after Trump announced he was renaming his defence department “the department of war”, a title last used in World War II.
The Republican governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, was a welcome adult in the room. He called for a culture of “embracing our differences and having those hard conversations, telling a media conference, “We can always point the finger at the other side … At some point we have to find an offramp or else it’s going to get much, much worse.”
The person accused of Kirk’s murder, 22-year-old electrical apprentice Tyler Robinson, was quietly arrested by police in his home town of Washington in south-west Utah, because his family persuaded him that this was for the best. The FBI was not involved.
In contrast to the violence of the crime, Robinson’s arrest was peaceful. Robinson had not previously voted, but his parents were regular churchgoers and registered Republicans. Community and family members were shocked to the core.
Then yesterday Cox revealed a surprising discovery made during investigation of Robinson’s life. He appears to have been in a close relationship with another young man who was in the process of transitioning to a woman.
That in itself presents a likely motive for murder. Kirk opposed transgender surgery, likening doctors performing this role to Nazis and calling their work “a throbbing middle finger to God.” He has described cross-dressing as an “abomination”.
Injecting politics into a crime investigation is never a good thing. In this case, Trump’s branding of political opponents as enemies of the people, amid already-simmering political tensions, has the potential not just to wreck the prosecution of Robinson but also to bring people on to the streets, either baying for blood or seeking to counter violent rhetoric.
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Trump would welcome this. His past connection with the late convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, with its potential to damage his presidency beyond repair, is getting unwelcome public attention. What better solution to this messy business than angry crowds, or all-out war, civil or otherwise?
How this will all play out is anybody’s guess, but with Trump feeling the heat from other sources it can only be chaotic. The pernicious influence of his flagrantly irresponsible presidency is being felt not just across America but around the world, including in Australia.
We see it in covert racial, anti-gay or anti-trans slurs – in the street, on the sports field and in social media. We see it more publicly in recent protests against perceived threats, especially migration – “mass migration” according to those behind the demonstrations. Wherever it appears, it leaves behind damaged lives and communities.
In the wake of World War II, nations sought to elevate restraint and civility in political discourse by establishing the United Nations in, of all places, Donald Trump’s home town of New York. With that awful conflict now fading from public memory, people and leaders are again turning to baseless propaganda, scapegoating, blame-shifting and revenge – time-honoured preconditions for war.
Trump’s selfish, vengeful leadership has damaged the global economy, political structures, democracy, justice and science, with its critical role in informing us. And it massively influences how people and nations behave with each other.
The president’s troubling beliefs and pinched mindsets, combined with the huge economic and military clout of his country, have put the world in a perilous position. Finding a way to discuss that while building our separate capacity to look after ourselves is the Albanese government’s greatest challenge.