He Enabled a Monster, Now What?

Donald Trump enabled a monster, which reared its ugly head on January 6 in the Capitol, and he’s powerless to undo the damage. His so-called base, which includes conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers, is turning on him, as evidenced in his recent public appearances with fired Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly.

When Trump told audiences he received the COVID-19 booster shot, many of them booed him. Maybe they felt betrayed because he followed the science when it was in his own best interest, despite all of the disinformation he’s been spewing for years. The worm, it would appear, is turning.

Another Fox commentator, Jesse Watters, told the audience at Turning Point USA’s recent AmericaFest conference to “ambush” Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the foremost infectious disease experts in the world, with questions about the National Institutes of Health allegedly funding research at Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Watters took his comments to the next level when he urged the audience, “Now you go in for the kill shot. The kill shot? With an ambush? Deadly. Because he doesn’t see it coming.” Once again, we are left to ask ourselves, in what alternate universe is this type of incendiary language acceptable?

No doubt Watters and the usual apologists will characterize the comment as rhetorical. Just like the comments made by Rep. Mo Brooks preceding the January 6 assault on the Capitol. “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass,” Brooks bellowed. Or Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who told the same audience to engage in “trial by combat,” a comment he later said was a reference to Game of Thrones.

But there are far too many people who are easily manipulated, and who might take Watters’ comments literally. As it is, Dr. Fauci, a man of science, had already found it necessary to have the protection of personal body guards. Now Watters is encouraging people to “go in for the kill shot.” Hyperbole or not, Watters is irresponsible at best, and a ratings whore and hate monger at worst.

Trump, for his part, compressed four years of lies and disinformation into one speech on January 6. If you haven’t read the full text, it reinforces just how fanatical and determined he was about violating the US Constitution by attempting to overturn the results of a lawful election. An election that has been validated and upheld time and again by one court and elections board after another.

His remarks to the assembled crowd illustrate how he enabled a monster over a four-year period by continuing his practice of banging away at absolute falsehoods. For the record, early in his remarks Trump did say, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

But then he and his allies proceeded to whip the audience into a frenzy with all the usual dog whistles, warning them they were losing their country, their children were being indoctrinated and urging them to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell. And if we don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” Trump warned them.

Now, with COVID deaths in the US surpassing 800,000 and rising, Trump decided to tell his base he got the booster, as if that would bring them to their senses. What he doesn’t understand is that the monster he’s nurtured these last five years is more powerful than anything he imagined. He has let an ominous genie out of the bottle, and the genie shows no sign that it plans to go back inside.

Just ask Jesse Watters.