Donald Trump Is a Stochastic Terrorist

Donald Trump's use of social media to threaten opponents and rile up his supporters against them is the very definition of stochastic terrorism.

Former President of the United States Donald J. Trump delivers remarks at Windham High School. Photo by Erin Clark/The Boston Globe via Getty Images.

In November of last year, in the wake of the horrific shooting inside Club Q in Colorado Springs, I wrote about the growing problem of “stochastic terrorism.” I was responding to the tendency of the media, right-wing politicians and commentators to look only at the motives and actions of the direct perpetrators of violence without a deeper examination of what is actually driving them.

I wrote at the time,

“Stochastic terrorism” is defined as “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.” This kind of terrorism isn’t covered under any criminal laws in the United States because we give it a pass under freedom of speech. But that doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t seek to limit it where we can, especially on big, private social media platforms.

Remind you of anyone? 

We are now at a critical and dangerous new point where the former president, Donald Trump, is using his social media platform, Truth Social, to publicly demonize particular people (witnesses, trial judges, and prosecutors) as well as whole groups (the Biden Administration, Democrats, and grand jurors). And it has already resulted in violent threats against them.

Predictably, Trump claims his veiled warnings, name-calling, and dehumanizing taunts are protected free speech. But are they, really? What can be done about stochastic terrorism when it takes the form of statements by someone as powerful as Donald Trump?

Today, we’ll first look at Trump’s various statements and see whom and what they have targeted, including his pattern of using social media to summon powerful and predictably violent forces to his side. Then we’ll review how extremist followers of his have responded recently to these calls. Finally, we’ll look at some ways our legal system might effectively respond.

Before we dive in, it’s important to recognize how destabilizing this kind of terrorism can be. Protecting the sanctity of our judicial process, not to mention the lives of the civil servants who work to keep people like Trump accountable, is of paramount importance if we are to remain a nation of laws and their rule, rather than the rule of a single man. 

Trump’s history of stochastic terrorism 

The Trump years, which in many ways we are still feeling the effects of, were marked by a rise in hate crimes and violence against specific groups, often carried out by devout followers of the ex-president. Trump put targets on many different kinds of people to single them out and render them more vulnerable. 

Attacks upon the media

One of the first lines of attack Trump deployed was against the news media. While he was a candidate for office in 2016, he railed constantly against reporters, calling them the “enemy of the people,” saying they “really didn’t like America” and insisting they were “dishonest people.”

His followers quickly took up the call, especially taunting and threatening members of the media covering Trump’s rallies, who were often symbolically penned up inside special enclosures. And when reporters tried to cover “Stop the Steal” protests and the January 6 insurrection itself, they often became targets of the rally and riot participants. 

Targeting of minorities in America

Trump infamously labeled Mexican migrants as murderers, rapists, and drug dealers and repeated false promises to build a wall along the southern border to keep immigrants out. This led to tragic, predictable results. During Trump’s presidency in 2019, a mass murderer targeted Hispanics in a Wal-Mart in El Paso, Texas, killing 23 people. The shooter had posted a manifesto with anti-immigrant and white nationalist themes.

Trump also publicly blamed China for the Covid-19 virus, which he dubbed the “China Virus” and the “Kung Flu.” This racist rhetoric corresponded with a huge rise in anti-AAPI hate crimes in the U.S. in 2020 and 2021 and several murders or attempted murders around the country. Over 9,000 pandemic-related anti-Asian hate incidents were recorded by the summer of 2021.

Lately, Trump has trotted out anti-trans messaging. “The left-wing gender insanity being pushed on our children is an act of child abuse,” Trump said in a video. Trump claimed he wants to “stop the chemical, physical, and emotional mutilation” of youth in the U.S. The messaging has helped propel an unprecedented wave of anti-trans legislation, leading to threatened attacks upon hospitals performing gender-affirming care, Pride celebrations, and recently to a shooting of an LGBTQ ally in Lake Arrowhead, California by a right-wing extremist simply because she had hung a Pride flag outside her shop.

Targeting of election workers, rallying and stoking his base

In the aftermath of the 2020 election, Trump and his cronies targeted innocent election workers in Fulton County, Georgia. Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss became easy marks for MAGA extremists after Trump and Giuliani circulated false stories about them attempting to commit election fraud, including a video that supposedly showed Freeman and Moss bringing in a suitcase of fake ballots. Even though the video was thoroughly debunked, Trump continued to put it on screen during political rallies after the election. 

Trump went after the two Black women repeatedly by name, leading MAGA extremists to threaten the women’s lives and show up at their homes. Trump asked his social media followers, “What will the Great State of Georgia do with the Ruby Freeman MESS?” He then concluded that he’s battling “the evils and treachery of the Radical Left monsters who want to see America die.” 

Both Freeman and Moss testified before Congress about the terror inflicted upon them, stoked stochastically by Trump and others. Moss received messages “wishing death upon me. Telling me that I’ll be in jail with my mother. And saying things like, ‘Be glad it’s 2020 and not 1920.’”

“There is nowhere I feel safe. Nowhere,” Freeman told the January 6 Committee in a prerecorded video. “Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States target you? The president of the United States is supposed to represent every American, not to target one.”

In December 2020, as he continued his crusade to overturn his election loss, and knowing full well the effect his words could have to ignite his base, Trump turned his sights upon the electoral count set for January 6, 2021 and summoned a mob of his followers to Washington on that day. “Will be wild!” he promised them in a tweet. Thousands answered his call.

And as his followers attacked the Capitol, Trump inflamed them further, tweeting out that Mike Pence was a “coward” who “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution." The crowd, now even more enraged, began calls to “Hang Mike Pence!”—a sentiment for which, as others have testified, Trump voiced his support.

Trump’s recent public attacks upon the legal system

As the legal system has finally begun to catch up with Trump, he’s now turned his threats against those who are pursuing accountability.

He has attacked Special Counsel Jack Smith, repeatedly calling him a “deranged lunatic.”

Trump also recently attacked District Attorney Fani Willis, who is Black and whom Trump has labeled a “racist.” One post of his used a play on the N-word: “They never went after those that Rigged the Election,” Trump wrote. “They only went after those that fought to find the RIGGERS!”

Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is also Black and is presiding over Trump’s federal trial for his corrupt efforts to overturn the 2020 election, was attacked by Trump as “highly partisan” and “VERY BIASED & UNFAIR!”

Trump also issued indirect, non-specific threats against anyone seeking to pursue justice against him. “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU,” he posted on Truth Social—just a day after he signed papers before a federal magistrate agreeing not to go after witnesses or obstruct justice.

Threats of violence from his followers grow in response

His words are having an effect upon his followers. Texas officials recently arrested a woman named Abigail Jo Shry who made a call to Judge Tanya Chutkan’s chambers on August 5. Shry left a voicemail containing racist threats. 

“Hey you stupid slave n----r ... You are in our sights, we want to kill you,” Shry warned. She also allegedly “threatened to kill anyone who went after” Trump, while also threatening to kill Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), every Democrat in Washington, D.C., and people in the LGBTQ community. “If Trump doesn't get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you,” Shry’s voicemail warned. “So tread lightly, b---- ... You will be targeted personally, publicly, your family, all of it.”

In Fulton County, followers of Trump used the public nature of grand jury lists there to dox members of the grand jury that had indicted Trump and 18 others on state crimes. As CNN reported, “Names, photographs, social media profiles and even the home addresses purportedly belonging to members of the Fulton County grand jury that this week voted to indict former President Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants are circulating on social media – with experts saying that some anonymous users are calling for violence against them.”

It’s no longer just about free speech 

As Trump’s legal perils have grown, so have his threats upon members of the judiciary, prosecutors, witnesses and jurors. If left unchecked, a megaphone as big as Trump’s could soon inspire every extremist in the nation, who might hear and interpret his messages as calling for violence.

So what can be done? Is the biggest stochastic terrorist simply free to keep issuing threats and egging his followers on?

The short answer now is, “no.”

Before he became a defendant in four criminal cases, Trump was free to spout whatever lies or vague and indirect threats he wanted to his base. The First Amendment broadly protected all his words, unless he specifically incited violence with them.

But now that he is free on bond in four criminal cases, judges can and have imposed conditions for Trump to stay out of jail while he is awaiting trial.

Judge Chutkan in D.C., for example, has warned Trump against repeated “inflammatory” statements about the case. He could cause her, she warned, to speed up his trial to limit the impact upon the jury pool.

“I caution you and your client to take special care in your public statements about this case,” Chutkan told Trump lawyer John Lauro during a hearing. “I will take whatever measures are necessary to safeguard the integrity of these proceedings.”

In the Georgia state criminal case, the restrictions just announced and agreed to relating to Trump’s speech, including his social media, are even more specific. As the Washington Post summarized,

The former president is not allowed to communicate with witnesses or co-defendants about the case, except through his lawyers, and he is barred from intimidating witnesses or co-defendants. He is also forbidden from making any “direct or indirect threat of any nature against the community or to any property in the community,” including in “posts on social media or reposts of posts” by others on social media.

Failure to adhere to these rules could result in his being found in violation of these express conditions with his pre-trial release revoked, for a short time or even until the trial begins. 

But what about Trump’s free speech rights? They are much diminished because Trump has voluntarily given many of them up in exchange for being let out awaiting trial. The bond conditions are in the form of an agreement between himself and court officials. While parties are generally free to say whatever they want, there is nothing that prevents a party from freely contracting away the right to speak in exchange for something valuable.

We see this in non-disclosure agreements all the time, and the same principle would apply here. Trump is now contractually bound to obey the bond conditions he agreed to. If he violates them, he can lose the benefit of the deal, which includes his freedom of movement.

But a contract is only as strong as a party’s willingness to enforce it. If Trump continues his online attacks, putting not only individuals but the whole criminal justice system at risk, it will be up to the judges overseeing his cases to act to rein him in. 

It is unlikely that, right out the gate, any judge will order him remanded into custody until the commencement of the trial. Judges will be careful not to allow his treatment in the pre-trial phase overshadow the question of his guilt in the trial itself. But a judge could sanction Trump in other ways that matter, including moving up the trial date, increasing the scope of a gag order, or even ordering him to serve a shorter stint of a few days in jail as a warning. 

Whatever the remedy, the stochastic terrorism that Trump has deployed for years is now, finally, running up against the wall of our judicial system. Trump likely will have to find less direct ways to stoke his followers’ emotions and play the victim for their small dollar donations. He no doubt will try everything he can get away with, but the tools and words at his disposal are beginning to shrink rapidly.