Former President Donald Trump has emboldened the worst of people who are now intimidating school board members and other elected officials. Mona Charen at the conservative site, The Bulwark, tells the story of how out of hand an incident got for the principal of Mesquite Elementary School. She had to faceoff with a student’s father, who became enraged after his son was told he had to quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19. The parent demanded that his kid be allowed back in school, then he said to her that others were on their way, warning, “If you keep doing this, we’re going to have a big problem.” Two other men did arrive within a few minutes, one carrying military-style zip ties, telling Diane Vargo, the principal, that they were going to make a “citizens’ arrest.
This sort of behavior has been spreading across the U.S.
“The same month, in Michigan, a meeting of the Barry-Eaton District Board of Health was disrupted when a man threatened to make a citizen’s arrest of a county health official after a school mask mandate was announced,” Charen writes. “That was mild compared with the death threats Genesee County officials have received over masks. And that, in turn, was less serious than what happened in Kent County, where someone tried to run a health official off the road.”
“Stories of threats and violence aimed at ordinary Americans who are simply serving on school boards, supervising elections, holding public office, opening a mobile vaccine clinic, or having the effrontery to be elected as secretary of state are not new,” the report continues. “It’s a mashup of pandemic-induced mania, social media misinformation, Trump-incited disinhibition, and something in the water.”
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Charen cites the “notorious liars” at the Gateway Pundit as an example of someone being held accountable. Reuters documented the impact of the pro-Trump site after circulating falsehoods about the election: 25 election workers were targeted by more than 100 violent threats or hostile messages citing the Gateway Pundit. Two Georgia election workers are now suing the far-right website.
Charen writes that “the citizen’s arrest as an excuse for political violence is new. Trump set this table with his “lock her up” chants in 2016, his accusations of treason against New York Times guest editorialists, the FBI, and anyone else who damaged his fragile psyche.”
“His 2019 Twitter tantrum at Representative Adam Schiff was the gold standard: “I want Schiff questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason,” he tweeted on a Sunday,” the report continues. ‘He followed up the next morning with one saying, “Adam Schiff illegally made up a FAKE & terrible statement, pretended it to be mine as the most important part of my call to the Ukrainian President. . .Arrest for Treason?”‘
“It’s not enough to see these people as revolutionaries or criminals or dupes. Some may be all of those things, but there is a substrate of perverted patriotism here. The frequent invocation of the citizens’ arrest signifies a wish for legitimacy. They yearn to be responsible citizens, upholding the law and the Constitution and the duties of the individual,” Charen adds. “They have been corrupted, but that’s all the more reason for the rest of the American people to assert their uncorrupted patriotism more boldly. They must get active and defend the election workers, health care workers, school board members, journalists, politicians, secretaries of state, and anyone else who is being intimidated, hounded, or abused by the mob. If patriotism animates only the worst among us, we are lost.”
You can read the full article here.
Featured image via Political Tribune gallery
