In order to understand the danger we face in the November election, I think it’s important everyone is familiar with the phrase “stochastic terrorism.”
It’s another aspect of the underbelly of humanity that has been accelerated by social media, around-the-clock cable news and algorithms predicated on sending you down the closest rabbit hole.
Our former president mastered the art of riling up segments of the population. From his commencement speech — dubbed American Carnage — to his rally on the rotunda in D.C. on January 6th, as well as every hate-tinged rally in between leading right up to the present, he has scratched the itch of violent and malevolent provocateurs.
There’s no denying it.
Out takes could be played for hours highlighting the persistent call-to-arms drum beat. Social media posts could be displayed for days on end clearly showing his lust for violent reactions. Does the post Liberate Michigan! ring a bell? Do you remember the plot to kidnap Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer? Recall AR-15 toting crackpots peering down into the Michigan representatives chambers?
Their presence was the direct result of stochastic terrorism.
What does stochastic terrorism mean?
Stochastic terrorism is “the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted.”
The word stochastic, in everyday language, means “random.” Terrorism, here, refers to “violence motivated by ideology.”
Here’s the idea behind stochastic terrorism:
A leader or organization uses rhetoric in the mass media against a group of people.
This rhetoric, while hostile or hateful, doesn’t explicitly tell someone to carry out an act of violence against that group, but a person, feeling threatened, is motivated to do so as a result.
That individual act of political violence can’t be predicted as such, but that violence will happen is much more probable thanks to the rhetoric.
This rhetoric is thus called stochastic terrorism because of the way it incites random violence.
The former president — and definitive loser of the 2020 election — targets public AND private individuals with his incessant, single-minded vitriol that could easily instigate violent responses.
Has and does.
Just recently, the asshole who sought to harm former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but wound up clubbing her 82-year old husband with a clawhammer while breaking and entering into their San Francisco home, received a 30 year prison sentence. The voices in his head, which I’m sure sounded strangely like a mix of Faux News talking heads, Alex Jones’s unbalanced rants and the adderall-jacked mayor of Mar-a-Lardo’s deranged bleatings, must have reached a frenzied, tinnitus-like crescendo for the man to behave so angrily and erratically. (If you are a reasonable person — which a majority of us are, I must keep reminding myself — you should have taken note that Republicans, conservatives and Christian Nationalist leaders did not rush to condemn this act of violence. Many of them were happy to infer there was something other than political violence at play. Anything other than their Dear Leader’s stochastic terrorism at its finest.)
Non-stop invective, from a bully pulpit that reaches across the globe, directed at individuals or groups — from Gold Star families to entire populations (just about every country in Africa) — are the fodder of stochastic terrorism. Stochastic terrorism fueled what happened in Germany in the early 1900’s. I’m sure stochastic terrorism swept through countries like Rwanda and Cambodia and Bosnia prior to their spasmodic episodes of intense violence.
More recently, the ethnic cleansing in Myanmar against the Rohingya people was stochastic terrorism emanating predominantly from social media — and more specifically — Facebook. I’m not sure human minds are evolutionarily prepared to handle the future we are creating for ourselves. I’m not convinced our neural pathways are designed to filter truth from fiction every second of the day. I’m positive we don’t truly have a choice.
Artificial intelligence is here. There’s money to be made. Power to be claimed. Bad actors exist. Those factors are here to stay.
We are buried in information, misinformation and disinformation but the only way forward is to winnow away at everything thrown at us and maintain our humanity while doing so. I spend an inordinate amount of time curating my news feed by being extraordinarily careful about what I select to read. Nonetheless, algorithmic news often wins the day and it can easily become disheartening as I watch the crap creep into my news of the day.
Opinion masked as newsworthy. Every day news shot through with opinion. It seems everyone’s point of view has taken the stage. Every voice has a platform without any gatekeepers we can trust.
We should be worried about this state of the world.
We should be worried about bad actors flooding the zone with bullshit.
We should be alarmed when the former shit-thrower-in-chief calls subtly (or not-so-subtly) for immunity for a hit or hits on his political rival(s).
The country and our form of government is in a precarious place due to one of our political parties having been taken over by rotten people who wouldn’t even hesitate over a ethical decision like would you take a million dollars if your job was to bludgeon puppies to death all day?
Jon Favreau’s Wilderness podcast in its second episode of this season touches upon the persuadables among the former-feces-flinger’s voters. They’re considered persuadable because, if they believe for a second that the stochastic terrorist who set loose thousands of rioters on the Capitol Building, could POSSIBLY choose to not voluntarily leave the Oval Office (should he ever get back in), they want nothing to do with him. The Republican political operatives Favreau was interviewing believe appealing to those voters sense of patriotism and strong sense of adhering to the Constitution is the route to peeling them away.
One of the interviewers asked a MAGA supporter what the supporter thought the chances were Tr*mp might elect to eschew elections after 2024 if he were elected. The supporter thought “5%” — which is low — but not the most comfortable percentage which would be “0%”. The supporter was asked if he could live with himself if that came to pass.
It was an emphatic NO.
A bunch are also turned off by the man’s incorrigible demeanor and willingness to stir the pot of anger and hatred. Don’t get me wrong. These people are a small percentage of the anti-former-rhetorical-bomb-thrower-in-chief crowd, and they are not fans of Biden and Harris.
What I’m alluding to is…there’s a chance of persuading these people to back away from the Kool-Aid.
There’s a lot of worthwhile writers on Substack that I’m enjoying these days. In fact, when my Apple News Feed gets clogged with countervailing articles about every newsworthy subject on the planet and my brain feels like it’s stuck on a merry-go-round, I dive into my Substack Notes feed.
Here are some of the writers I’m enjoying reading:
Jeff Jackson - a Democratic representative from North Carolina who provides great clarity to the every day happenings on Capitol Hill and a little insight to how the sausage gets made.
JoJo Herz - ‘New Jersey girl’ (her description, not mine) who knows her way around the English language and slings some of the spiciest of barbs toward the people in our country who’ve lost their ever-loving minds.
Rick Wilson - Rick Wilson, along with Steve Schmidt, were once considered to be dread GOP pirates to me. Scumbags, really. They swam among GOP sharks like Karl Rove. However, since the golden escalator moment and America opting to allow a mob boss to rummage around in its nuclear secrets for nearly half a decade, they’ve become two of the loudest voices defending democracy.
Kareem Abdul Jabbar - You cannot get a more insightful rumination about life, what’s happening across the globe and the ongoing state of the nation. Highly recommended.
Jess Piper - She writes a column titled The View from Rural Missouri and it is ‘oh so refreshing’ to hear there are voices like hers in “flyover country”. Having run for office in Missouri — though unsuccessfully — she is very well informed about the politics of a Red State.
Thanks for reading. Thanks for caring. Thanks for fighting the good fight. Thanks for looking to get into good trouble. Thanks — in advance — for voting and encouraging others to do the same. — JLM
Stochastic Terrorism …the key example being the 2 Georgia election officials that he nearly ruined the lives of,
For the INSIGHT YouTube with Ben Carson and Whoopi I’d like to know what is with the female narrator? Ben Carson is a rank in file tRump butt licker.