Former U.S. Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security Mary McCord disputed the right-wing fantasy that a second civil war was on the horizon.
MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace played the recent video from Donald Trump loyalist Peter Navarro saying that he believes MAGA supporters are readying for an attack on the U.S. government. This time, he claimed, it would be the fault of Democrats for making them do it.
"In their quest for power, radical elements within the Democrat Party have abandoned any pretense of fairness, tolerance, and justice," Navarro said, with the Constitution as a background. "In their woke new world, Democrat strategists use unscrupulous lawfare tactics to skew our election system, even as weaponized bureaucracies like the Department of Justice, FBI and National Archives—now under Democratic control—seek to destroy the Republican Party and its de facto leader, Donald Trump."
"The Democrat activists and strategists now driving this nation towards a second civil war have neither justice nor righteousness on their side," Navarro continued. "My strong admonition to these Democrats—as I appeal to the wiser in your party—is this: Back this anti-democratic truck up before it runs over you."
Wallace was aghast.
“Are you kidding?” she exclaimed. “If the audacity doesn’t hit you in the face, the hypocrisy and projection will. So, that guy goes on to warn Democrats that their so-called weaponization of government and DOJ and other government agencies is going to come back to haunt you? I’m sorry. That’s an alarming threat.”
McCord explained that veiled threats like these deployed by Navarro are fully protected by free speech, even if it sounds like a threat. It isn't until Navarro crosses the line into a true threat that he will face off against the strong arm of the law. She went on to say she thinks that the far-right continues to press these kinds of threats to the legal line.
"So, we get more and more of this type of extremist language that, you know, when you take the comments you just showed of Peter Navarro, you know, he wasn't actually making a direct threat, right?" McCord continued. "He was really, I think, trying to inject into the public consciousness this idea of civil war, which he has to know because we have seen it over and over and over again will cause individuals to start talking about that on social media, to start maybe even mobilizing around those types of things."
McCord went on to cite a University of Chicago survey that asked about political violence in an abstract way. But once things became more specific, the person pulled back.
"I don't want to mitigate this threat. As you know, I talk about political violence all the time," she explained. "But I don't want to alarm Americans into thinking that, you know, a large jump, a large number of Americans really are ready to take up arms in a civil war against their fellow Americans. I don't think we are there yet. I think we are in a very dangerous place because of the rhetoric and that brings fear, and fear to people that prevents them from participating in democratic processes, and that's one of the things we need to worry about, in my view, even more than are we really gonna have war on streets of the United States of America."
See the conversation in the video below or at the link.
Former national security official pours cold water on Peter Navarro’s hopes for second civil warwww.youtube.com
