A Word for Trump's Rhetoric
Dangerous Speech • phrase • (deyn-jer-uhs speech)
Definition: Any form of expression (e.g. speech, text, or images) that can increase the risk that its audience will condone or commit violence against members of another group.
Origin: English
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On Saturday, February 13, 2021, the United States’ Senate voted to acquit former President Donald Trump of inciting the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
The argument put forth by Trump’s defense team aspired to distance Trump’s rhetoric, tweets, and statements he gave at the “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6, from the riot that occurred immediately after.
Their arguments are absurd and dangerous, but they remain viable in the United States because we have no understanding of dangerous speech. Not only does America not understand dangerous speech, but our interpretation of free speech actually works to protect dangerous speech.
Far too often American society describes dangerous speech as the price we all must pay in order to live in a free society, and the dystopian nature of this American status quo should be obvious to all of us. If it did not become obvious on January 6, it should have become obvious during Trump’s impeachment trial.
Not only did House Democrats systematically connect Trump’s statements to the riot, but many of the people arrested for storming the Capitol even stated that they believed they were following Trump’s orders. They attended Trump’s rally called “Stop the Steal,” and then they stormed the Capitol to prevent senators from fulfilling their constitutional duty in certifying Joe Biden as president. Trump’s supporters travelled to Washington, D.C. to “Stop the Steal” upon the request of Trump. The danger of Trump’s words cannot be minimized.
By acquitting Trump in his second impeachment trial, America has done just that, and we cannot underestimate the dangerous American norm that our government has just empowered.
Dangerous Speech & Clarence Brandenburg
Brandenburg v. Ohio remains a seminal free speech case in the United States, and while it may have been considered a landmark decision at the time, it has set a dangerous precedent that Trump and the Republican Party have used to minimize the issue of dangerous speech in America.
In 1964, Klu Klux Klan member Clarence Brandenburg invited a TV news reporter to attend and record a KKK rally. At this rally Brandenburg said, “We’re not a revengent organization, but if our president, our Congress, our Supreme Court continues to suppress the white, Caucasian race, it’s possible that there might have to be some revengeance taken.”
Just to be clear, the KKK is a “revengent” organization despite “revengent” not being a word. Brandenburg clearly meant “vengeful” when he said “revengent.” The KKK was formed after the Civil War with the intent of seeking revenge or vengeance against white Union supporters and Black Americans who wanted equality and freedom.
At the time, Ohio had laws that limited types of speech that the state considered dangerous. The origin of these laws, and those in many other states, was primarily for preventing language that expressed support for the many adversaries America had cultivated in our numerous wars during the first half of the 20th century, such as support for Communism and Nazism. Brandenburg’s language spoke to a domestic, distinctly American problem and when Brandenburg’s statements became known, he was charged with “advocating violence” under Ohio’s criminal syndicalism statute.
Brandenburg appealed the decision and in 1969, his case reached the Supreme Court, and the court overturned Brandenburg’s conviction. The Justices stated that we could not prove “imminent lawless action,” so punishing Brandenburg constituted an unjust application of freedom of speech.
For over 50 years, Brandenburg v. Ohio has helped set the standard for free speech in America, and it should be clear how this decision protects and encourages the dangerous speech of domestic white American terrorist groups. American groups that have been created for the explicit purpose of inflicting terror upon communities of color, now have their dangerous language protected as free speech. Our society is encouraged to believe that their dangerous words have no connection to their dangerous acts and the terror they inflict upon others. America has chosen to perceive white terrorist organizations as having no connection to terror despite terrorism being their modus operandi.
Domestic white terrorism has been made banal in America, and all of us have been condemned to live in a society where “freedom” also equates to “white terrorism.” Terror now becomes the price we pay for freedom.
Dangerous Speech & a Meaningless Existence
As I watched Trump’s impeachment trial it amazed me how Republicans casually brushed away the specter of death as a mere nuisance.
Republican Senator Mike Lee even stated that Trump deserved a “mulligan,” equating the casual nature of a miscued golf shot and the ensuing do-over to the severity of storming the Capitol. In this statement, Lee put the responsibility of the riot on Trump while also saying that Trump should not be held responsible for his actions.
The Republican argument was both that Trump was not responsible for the riot, and that he was responsible for the riot but should not be held responsible for it. This is the master-slave dialectic and dangerous speech all at once.
Trump and the Republican Party want the irresponsible power of the “master.” They want power without responsibility, and the speech they defend is the dangerous language of irresponsible people who have little concern for human life. This is the language of Clarence Brandenburg and countless generations of white ethnocidal Americans. This is the language that America chooses to defend and believes is a vital part of American freedom.
A key part of the House Democrats’ argument was how Trump instructed his followers to target Republicans who he felt had betrayed him, and how close his followers came to Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Mitt Romney. Via Trump’s dangerous speech, the lives of Pence and Romney became meaningless in the eyes of his supporters as they inflicted terror in pursuit of “freedom.” Now Pence’s and Romney’s colleagues—people they probably considered friends—have voted to not punish the man who orchestrated the deadly attack.
The ethnocider will protect their destructive way of life even when it threatens those close to them. Anyone and anything, including words, can become meaningless as they defend their irresponsible “freedom” to destroy the world around them.
When a society embraces and normalizes dangerous speech, as America has, it creates a societal norm that promotes a meaningless existence that condones terrorism as an inevitable facet of what their dystopian status quo calls “freedom.”
(You can learn more about dangerous speech at the Dangerous Speech Project.)
