Paul Hague lives in Weare.
During the Trump administration and since, the United States has experienced a significant increase in violence. This trend is documented in The Dangerous Case of Donald Trumpby Bandy Lee, a forensic psychiatrist and Yale medical school graduate, and written about in Mother Jones (September + October 2022).
In 1997, Lee and James Gilligan of Harvard studied the occurrence of violence in the U.S. since 1900. As they examined data, they were shocked to find significantly higher rates of violent death under Republican presidents than Democratic ones. Additionally, murder and suicide rates were higher in states that had voted for Republican presidential candidates than those that voted for Democratic candidates.
Their key findings were published in a monograph, “Why Some Politicians Are More Dangerous Than Others.” Since 1900, every time a Republican president has taken over, economic inequality has increased and the country has become more violent.
Harvard psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg observed that perpetrators of violence tend to be frozen in an early developmental stage. Like young children, they rarely take into account the concerns of others and tend to obey only those they fear. Such adults are incapable of any sophisticated moral calculus. For Trump, the only reason not to do something, even something that is likely to harm others, is to avoid punishment.
The aftermath of Trump rallies often saw increases in hate crimes and violence. The FBI has reported nearly a one-third increase in hate crimes from 2016 to 2020.
In the summer of 2020, Lee predicted that Trump, if he loses “will likely refuse to concede the results, call the election a fraud, and refuse to leave office.”
Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric and behavior over the past few years can be seen in large segments of the GOP. Nearly 50 million American adults believe the 2020 election was stolen, and 21 million —about one-third of whom own guns – believe force would be justified to restore Trump to office, according to a recent University of Chicago survey.
The obvious conclusion and fix for this state of affairs is to never vote for any Republican, for any office, anywhere.