The ‘Trump train’ drivers had reason to expect impunity
In Texas on Friday, dozens of vehicles driven by supporters of President Donald Trump formed a “Trump Train” on Interstate 35, and several of them surrounded a Joe Biden campaign bus, slowing it and attempting to force it off the road. One viral video shows a truck with pro-Trump and Blue Lives Matter banners striking a Biden staffer’s vehicle. After the FBI announced an investigation of the coordinated operation, Trump thanked the perpetrators, declaring, “In my opinion, these patriots did nothing wrong.” Senator Marco Rubio of Florida added his support, asking spectators at a Trump rally, “Did you see it? All the cars on the road, we love what they did.”
The I-35 event was one of many this weekend in which convoys of Trump supporters demonstrated on the nation’s highways, in some cases stopping traffic on major interstates. In embracing the Texas operation, which led to the cancellation of three Democratic events, the Trump camp contributed to the mainstreaming of political intimidation in the United States. But beyond the president’s support, participants in the Trump Train had another reason to think they could get away with such a deed: Our legal system forgives few acts of violence so readily as those committed with a motor vehicle—even those done on purpose.
More and more, political tensions in the United States are culminating in physical attacks. Largely in reaction to racial-justice demonstrations and pandemic-related public-health mandates, extremists have taken to the streets with military-style weapons, bulletproof vests, and other tactical gear. Some have shot protesters to death in melees. Others converged with guns in hand on the Michigan capitol; some of them, the FBI later alleged, conspired to kidnap and possibly murder the state’s governor.
Still other militants have chosen a different weapon: vehicles. In a 102-day period following George Floyd’s death in the custody of Minneapolis police, the terrorism researcher Ari Weil identified 104 vehicle-ramming attacks that had been committed against protesters. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the perpetrators were extremists on the far right whose acts of violence were cheered online. Police officers have also driven their vehicles—in some cases SUVs or cruisers fitted with bull bars—into protesters around the country. A few attacks have allegedly been perpetrated by left-wing extremists, too. The preeminent site of violent political conflict this year has been the street, and cars have joined firearms as weapons of choice. [Continue reading…]