Trump’s warning of violence is thinly veiled call to action by his army of thugs: Analyst

US President Donald Trump’s warning of “violence” if Republican Party lawmakers lose midterm elections is a thinly veiled call to action by his army of thugs, according to Myles Hoenig, an American political analyst and activist. 

Hoenig, a former Green Party candidate for Congress, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Wednesday after Trump warned of “violence” if Republican Party lawmakers lose their majority in Congress after the November midterm elections.

At a dinner for evangelical Christian preachers on Monday night at the White House, Trump urged religious leaders to use the power of their pulpits to make sure that “all of your people vote” in November, according to an audio recording of the meeting obtained by the New York Times.

“You’re one election away from losing everything you’ve got,” Trump reportedly told them.

“They will overturn everything that we’ve done and they’ll do it quickly and violently. And violently. There’s violence. When you look at antifa, and you look at some of these groups, these are violent people,” Trump said at the meeting.

Antifa - short for anti-fascist - refers to groups of far-left protesters who fight far-right ideology and regularly clash with far-right demonstrators.

'Trump throughout his campaign had advocated violence'

Hoenig said, “President Trump throughout his campaign had advocated violence against those who opposed him. Although he jokingly said he could shoot someone on 5th Ave. in New York and it wouldn’t lose him any votes, often during his campaign stops he ‘suggested’ to his crowd that they rough up hecklers and dissenters. He even promised to pay legal fees to those who engaged in such violence.”

“However, this is a first time that a serious candidate and then elected-president had called for open violence against dissenters. In the past presidents simply persecuted and prosecuted them through legal means, rather than gauchely rough them up in public. This goes from Obama jailing whistle blowers to the Red Scares immediately after WW1 and in between with the McCarthy witch hunts. As one who has pretty much praised neo-Nazis, skin heads, and the Klan, perhaps thinking of his dad, a former member, one can expect that it can only escalate,” he stated.  

“Now he’s talking to his religious Christian base. It comes as no surprise that he’s once again calling on his foot soldiers to wage probably a holy war if the Republican Congress should switch hands. Trump is claiming that the left is infested with Antifa, preparing to go to war against these good Christians and the Republican party and these soldiers need to be prepared to take them on. Incidentally, there is no organized group called Antifa. They are simply anti-fascists, not much different than the hundreds of thousands of US soldiers sent to Germany and Italy to fight the fascist there. But with Trump in office, the Fascists are welcomed and would most likely have the support of so-called Christian preachers,” he added.

“There is so much one can say about how democracy is a sham in our country, from income inequality to prison incarceration rates for minorities to the obvious sham of our elections. But for a president to threaten violence if his party loses is something only a fascist like Trump would dare to do. His supporters would likely say he’s only preparing his base to be reactive, but his stated concerns are truly a thinly veiled call to action by his army of thugs,” the analyst noted.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk