Coop Scoop: What are "Assassination Instructions" and Why is Trump Accused of Such?

Political violence is now part of the Republican Party Strategy.

October 4, 2022

By Marc Cooper

Behold, at least for a moment (or longer if you dare), the absolutely reprehensible and wretched public persona known as Ginni Thomas. Her ample physique quite appropriate as she embodies in one human torso and brain, just about everything that stinks to high heaven in our current political world.

Ginni, reportedly, has lived in the same country as we have for the last couple of years.  As a highly educated professional, she has read the same magazines and newspapers we have, (though I doubt her sub to Jacobin is current). She has watched the same TV news (plus the Fox entertainment channel). She has seen the same J6 hearings we have. She knows all about the assault on the Capitol because she not only helped people get to the infamous Stop the Steal Rally she also participated in it. Further, unlike most of us, Ginni has access to even more highly guarded info as she is a member in good standing of the Elite Washington Political Class.

She’s buds with various former high ranking Trumpers, like Mark Meadows. She attends dinner parties and galas with several Republican lawmakers. And though she makes the preposterous, ridiculous, mind-numbing, eye-popping assertion that she and her husband, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas never ever talk about politics, we know very well they do.

And, yet, when Ginni so happily complied with a request to meet with the J6 Committee –curious to know about her tweets and texts urging on the rioters and their leaders on that ugly day-- she emerged and it became crystal clear that nearly two years later, she still believes, or says she believes, that the 2020 election was stolen by Joe Biden and that the capitol rioters were merely expressing their frustrations over a rigged vote.

Look, I can’t get into Ginni’s head (a horrifying thought worse than diving into a dumpster of dead rats) so I don’t know if she is just Fucking Stupid or Crazy. After all, Hubby Clarence displays both characteristics so she could certainly be another one.

What I do know about Ginni, sans any further medical or psychological probing,  is that she is a militant, a cadre, a totally committed activist in the Republican Party’s current campaign to undermine leading American institutions and to ensconce itself in power regardless of electoral outcomes.

New York Times columnist Charles blow deems her “a one woman constitutional crisis.”

A better definition might simply be, One More Republican Revolutionary Seeking Overthrow of Our Legal Order. And one more example of a Republican Party that today demands and requires that membership include explicit recognition that the current president is an interloper and that the administration lacks any political legitimacy.

Yep, I recognize that short of revolutionary rhetoric. In college I had a lot of friends who fancied themselves as Leninists and imagined themselves some day storming the equivalent of the Winter Palace…in our case the Capitol. After all, they argued, the US regime was illegitimate.

Columnist Blow and others have identified the Ginni Problem as her husband not recusing himself from any J6 related cases.  That sort of misses the bigger point: The wife of a conservative Supreme Court justice has been actively and admittedly supported a movement aimed at overthrowing our constitutional order and has suffered no repercussions whatsoever. We have consumed this news like a lounge of Iguana lizards standing totally still in the sun, our eyes unblinking.

I still have much to say about the midterms. I will get to that in a moment.

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And now we continue below:

A mere 35 days away from the dramatic midterms, I have bumped into a lot of Democrats recently who think they are on the verge of a great, unexpected victory that will land a death blow to the Trumpies. They are whistling thru the graveyard, convinced that the threat of authoritarianism has waned.

I don’t think so, though I would love to be wrong.  It’s certainly the case that the walls are closing in on Donald Trump.  The odds now of him being tagged for either the Mar-a-Lago Papers or the J6 Seditious Conspiracy have exponentially increased.  And in tandem, Democratic numbers have slightly risen across the country.

Indeed, as Trump struggles to stay ahead of the DOJ and as more filth from his administration leaks every passing day, the MAGA movement becomes more and more militant, more dangerous, more violent. And truth is, this will persist and amplify no matter what happens to Trump.

Over the weekend the New York Times published a chilling data-laden front-pager outlining the wave of intimidation, violent threats and warnings of death that have swamped the offices and homes of Democratic elected officials.

Violent threats against members of congress were ten times higher in 2021 than in 2016.  And they are expected to surge higher in the days leading to the 2022 midterms.  “I wouldn’t be surprised if a senator or House member were killed,” said Collins, a “moderate” Republican serving her fifth term in office and serving as a constant target of more radical right wingers. “What started with abusive phone calls is now translating into active threats of violence and real violence.”

This on top of escalated threats that have driven hundreds of poll and election workers to quit their posts this year.

AOC, at the top of the MAGA hit list, has reportedly spent $120,000 in security measures.  Fellow squad member, Rep. Rashida Tlaib has spent some $70,000 on similar measures.

Qanon dupe Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, cranked up the climate of violence this weekend when appearing with Trump in Michigan, said:

““I’m not going to mince words with you all. Democrats want Republicans dead, and they have already started the killings.” In other words, if you kill a Democrat it’s probably justified.

Not to be outdone by one of his minions, Trump blasted out a message on his failing social media network saying that Senate Republican Leader has a “death wish” because he supported Democratic measures to shore up the electoral college against tampering. And he added a little racist spice by adding: McConnell ““must immediately seek help and advise [sic] from his China loving wife, Coco Cho!” Elaine Chow was Transport Secretary in the Trump administration but resigned over January 6.

Former conservative political adviser Scott Jennings had the most appropriate response to Trump, correctly calling his warning to McConnell “assassination instructions.”

"I mean, if you read that whole thing out loud, if you were on the street, and you heard someone muttering that on a street corner, you wouldn't say, 'Hmm, let's hand this person the presidency or the Republican nomination for president,'" Jennings said on CNN. "You would say, 'Call 911.' Because it sounds like an unhinged, deranged person has gotten loose and is out on the street and may be a danger to themselves and others."

He added that the insults against McConnell were "beyond the pale" and that "every Republican ought to be able to say so."

Of course, none have. Not one., When pressed three times on the air to denounce the threat, Republican Senator Rick Scott merely tap danced and avoided the issue.

One small but extremely disturbing detail of Sunday’s NYT’s deep dive on political threats was found in the lead of the story….that pretty much contradicted the body of the report. In it’s inimitable style of what some call “the blazing straddle” – of hedging instead of strongly affirming, the Times said “[m]embers of Congress in both parties are experiencing a surge in threats and confrontations as a rise in violent political speech has increasingly crossed over into the realm of in-person intimidation and physical altercation.”

Really? Both parties? A clever rhetorical device by the Times so no reader goes off half cocked with the irretrievable truth that the absolute overwhelming majority of the theats come from Republicans, MAGA and militias directed toward Democrats, liberals, Californians (!) rather than the other way around.

There are most certainly some individuals or small groups on the left who have made some threats but they amount to a drop in the ocean of Republian aggression. Only the Republicans have made glorification of political violence part of their unofficial program (Remember, they have no official platform).

Kudos to sharp-witted Jonathan V. Last (JVL), editor of the Never Trump site “The Bulwark” www.thebulwark.com, whose Monday morning essay was titled “It’s Not Both Sides” but didn’t bother to mention the Times piece it was rebutting,

JVL skewers the GOP saying that “political violence” is now part of the conservative/Republican ideology from the grass roots, to the intellectual elites, to the elected politicians.

Not only are we confronted with more than 100 MAGA election deniers running for elected office next month – many of them running for sensitive election oversight posts – but in the current midterm campaign so far there have been 104 separate candidate commercials.

I am a gun owner (member of The Liberal Gun Club) and am not squeamish about firearms.  But it makes me nauseous when I see any politican using guns as props to prove…what? A low IQ?

We spend too much time trying to assess the political moment by focusing on Washington and the White House and Congress. (I plead guilty).  But what happens on the ground all around us, where we rarely look, can give us a much better idea of where we are at and where we are going.

When I go to the local Walgreens here in Vancouver, Washington and I see a BMW X6 parked with a bumper sticker reading: “Are You A Democrat or an American?” or when I pass by the local street vendor selling huge Trump banners including a new one reading “Joe And The Ho Must Go” it gives me a somewhat better idea of what some folks are thinking beyond what Chuck Todd assumes they are.

Like you, I have of course noticed the improved political life of the Democrats over the last few months,  They will probably avoid losing more than a dozen or so seats in the House and will likely retain 50 senators.

I am all for the Republicans taking a beating.  But what, really, is going to change either way?

If the Democrats do well, then we can expect another round of claims of election theft with all that comes with that. If the Republicans emerge victorious, well, you can imagine Jim Jordan as Speaker.

Either way, the Supreme Court – now seen favorably by seven, yes, seven percent of Americans – will still be with us and their plans for 2023 include attacks on affirmative action and perhaps Clarence Thomas’ agenda of rolling back more sexual freedom.

MAGA will dig in and will continue with its program of subversion.

And somebody might very well get shot. +