Donald Trump’s decision to hold an indoor mass rally in Tulsa today, amidst a growing covid epidemic in Oklahoma, reveals that we are in the slash-and-burn, horror show stage of the Trump presidency. Many thousands may contract the virus; many hundreds may die, whether directly from being at the rally, or through transmitting the disease to other people afterwards. The lack of a requirement that participants wear masks and the absence of social distancing make clear that this rally is also intended to be a tribute to the self-serving president’s lie that the pandemic is behind us. He is willing to sacrifice the lives of his supporters for political gain. This is a moral abomination, the modern-day equivalent of a bloody sacrifice to the gods.
I have seen some comments on Twitter and elsewhere from opponents of Trump attacking the Trump fans who have decided to attend this rally. There has been a sometime overt assertion that these supporters deserve whatever illness or death befalls them. I can’t overstate how sick and misguided this line of thinking is.
There is no conceivable meaning of a democracy worth defending that countenances violence or death upon fellow citizens as part of the political process. Rejection of this bedrock premise is in fact one of the key reasons why Trump and his Republican political allies must be driven from office. It doesn’t matter if we disagree with Trump fans, or if we think they’re racist, or misogynist, or even white supremacists — they simply don’t deserve to die for the sin of supporting the president or for their immoral beliefs. The idea that political opponents deserve physical harm is not democratic politics, it’s authoritarian politics. It’s fascist politics. It is not our politics.
Confusion about this point only serves to obscure Trump’s and Republican elected officials’ culpability for the crimes and misrule of this administration. The president obviously wants us fighting amongst ourselves, wants his supporters to think of Democrats as treasonous race traitors and ungrateful minorities who want to burn and loot and rape and pillage American cities and towns. To take his bait, to let our anger get the better of us and mirror this undemocratic and hateful attitude, to say that our fellow Americans deserve to die for their politics, is a victory for Trumpism and a defeat for liberal values.
The overriding story of the Tulsa rally is that, for reasons tied to his personal pathology and dwindling political prospects, Donald Trump is engaging in behavior sure to sicken and kill Americans. No opponent of Trump should see this as anything but an unacceptable assault on our fellow citizens, no matter their political beliefs.