A History of Trump Violence: Trump Incites Violence

A timeline of Trump Stochastic Violence and laws broken at the bottom ↓↓

There is a reason political violence in America keeps happening and nobody in power ever takes the blame.

It is not an accident. It is not random. It is not mental illness. It is a system. And it has a name.

In 2021, FBI behavioral analyst Molly Amman and forensic psychologist J. Reid Meloy published a formal analysis in the peer-reviewed journal Perspectives on Terrorism. Their paper studied how public figures use mass communication to produce acts of violence without ever giving a direct order. They analyzed the mechanics of it, the psychology underneath it, and the specific real-world events where it played out, including the January 6th insurrection at the United States Capitol.

They called it stochastic terrorism.

The concept is pretty straightforward.

A public figure with a large platform repeatedly demonizes a specific person or group. They use language that frames the target as a threat to everything the audience holds sacred.

They call them invaders, traitors, vermin, enemies of the people.

They do this over and over, day after day, to an audience of millions. And eventually, someone in that audience acts. The speaker never has to give the order. They just have to keep talking long enough for the math to work.

The word stochastic comes from probability theory.

It means random in its individual occurrence but statistically predictable across a large enough sample.

You cannot predict which person will act.

But you can predict with near certainty that someone will.

The speaker knows this. That is the point.

They get the violence they want while keeping their hands clean enough to deny responsibility.

The Rallies

Trump normalized calling for Violence.

And what had been a pattern became a machine.

In 2015, Trump launched his presidential campaign by calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals. Within months, two men in Boston beat a homeless Mexican-American man with a metal pipe and urinated on him. When police asked why, one of them said “Trump was right. All of these illegals need to be deported.” Trump’s response was to call his supporters “passionate.”

By early 2016, his rallies had become recurring scenes of violence. At an Iowa rally in February, Trump told the crowd that if they saw someone about to throw a tomato, they should “knock the crap out of them.” He promised to pay their legal fees. At a Las Vegas rally he said he wanted to punch a protester in the face. In St. Louis he talked about the old days when protesters would be “carried out on a stretcher.” At a rally in Michigan he told supporters “I’ll beat the crap out of you.” Supporters punched, shoved, and attacked protesters at event after event and it was all caught on camera. In Fayetteville, North Carolina, a supporter sucker-punched a protester being escorted out by police. Trump said he did not condone violence. Then he told his staff to look into paying the man’s legal bills.

In August 2016, Trump suggested that “Second Amendment people” could stop Hillary Clinton from appointing judges. Former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who survived being shot in the head at a political event, responded: “Unstable people with powerful guns and an unhinged hatred for Hillary are listening to you.”

The Language Escalates

The rhetoric never slowed down. It only got worse.

In 2017, after a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville turned deadly, Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides.” That same year he told a crowd of police officers not to be “too nice” when arresting people.

In 2019, he laughed when a rally attendee shouted about shooting asylum seekers at the border. That same year, a man drove ten hours from the Dallas area to a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, and murdered 22 people. His manifesto used the phrase “Hispanic invasion of Texas.” That language did not come from nowhere. It came directly from Trump’s rallies and tweets. He never met Trump. He never received an order. He absorbed the rhetoric and did the math himself.

In May 2020, Trump retweeted a video of a supporter saying “the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.” That same month, as Minneapolis erupted in protest, he tweeted “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”

January 6th

On January 6, 2021, Trump told a crowd of thousands that they had to “fight like hell” or they would “not have a country anymore.” He told them to march to the Capitol. Hundreds of them broke through barricades, smashed windows, beat police officers with flagpoles, and stormed the building while Congress was certifying the presidential election. Over 200 defendants later told authorities they went to the Capitol because Trump told them to. One defendant told prosecutors he only decided to march on the Capitol because “President Trump made a statement about marching to the Capitol.”

Amman and Meloy’s own paper uses the Capitol siege as one of its primary illustrations of how stochastic terrorism unfolds in real time. The speaker demonizes. The speaker points. The audience acts. The speaker denies.

Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives for incitement of insurrection. He was acquitted by the Senate. The system held for the speaker. It did not hold for the people who died that day or the officers who took their own lives in the months that followed.

Vermin

By 2023, political scientists analyzing Trump’s speeches found that his use of violent vocabulary had nearly tripled since 2016, surpassing almost every other democratic politician and approaching the levels seen in authoritarian regimes.

In September 2023, Trump posted on Truth Social suggesting that General Mark Milley, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, should be executed for making a phone call after January 6th. In November 2023, he called his political opponents “vermin.” In December he said immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.” In March 2024, he warned of a “bloodbath for the country” if he was not reelected. That same month he shared a video on social media depicting President Biden bound in the back of a pickup truck.

None of these are accidents. None of these are gaffes. This is the machine working exactly as designed.

Seditious Behavior, Punishable by Death

In November 2025, six Democratic lawmakers released a video urging military personnel to refuse illegal orders. Trump posted on Truth Social that their actions constituted “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” He reposted messages from supporters calling for the lawmakers to be hanged. Senator Elissa Slotkin, one of the lawmakers targeted, reported a massive surge in death threats against her and her colleagues in the days that followed.

The White House press secretary clarified that the president “does not want to execute members of Congress.” But the audience already heard what they were supposed to hear. That is how this works. The literal meaning is the shield. The operative meaning is the weapon.

Rob Reiner

In December 2025, beloved filmmaker Rob Reiner and his wife Michele were found dead in their Brentwood home, killed by their own son. While the country mourned, Trump posted on Truth Social that Reiner had died “due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.” Even fellow Republicans called the post inappropriate and disrespectful. Trump’s message was clear: if you oppose me and something terrible happens to you, you brought it on yourself. That is not a eulogy. That is a warning.

Let Them Take Out Los Angeles

Two days ago, at a rally in Nebraska, Trump singled out two American cities by name. Defending the war in Iran, he suggested that if Iran developed a nuclear weapon, they could destroy an American city. Then he named the cities. “Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego.” The crowd cheered. The President of the United States named two American cities as acceptable targets for a foreign enemy and his supporters applauded. Governor Newsom called the remarks deranged and dangerous. San Diego’s mayor said the city is “not collateral damage.” The White House insisted he was misunderstood.

But that is not what he said. What he said was let them. And his audience heard it the way they were supposed to hear it. Those are liberal cities. Those are cities full of people Trump’s base already sees as the enemy. That is not a defense of the war effort. That is a president telling a crowd which American cities he would be willing to sacrifice and his crowd telling him they agree.

The Gap

What makes stochastic terrorism so effective is that it exploits the gap between what words technically say and what they actually do. No court can convict a speaker for saying that someone is a traitor or a baby killer or an invader or vermin. Those are opinions. They are protected speech. But when you say those things to millions of people every day for years, you are not just expressing an opinion. You are loading a weapon and pointing it in a direction. You do not have to pull the trigger. You just have to keep it aimed long enough.

Amman and Meloy describe this process through what they call linguistic pragmatics. The literal meaning of the speaker’s words is not the operative meaning. When a president says a group of lawmakers committed sedition punishable by death, the literal defense is that he was simply stating the legal penalty for sedition. When he says let them take out Los Angeles, the literal defense is that he was making the case for why the war matters. The operative meaning, the one the audience receives, is that these people deserve to die. That those cities do not matter. The speaker hides behind the literal meaning while the audience acts on the operative one. That gap is where the violence lives. And it is designed to be impossible to prosecute.

The Machine

The conservative propaganda machine in America did not stumble into this by accident. It found a generation of people who were already angry, already afraid, and already primed to believe that their way of life was under attack. It gave them targets. It gave them language. And it gave them permission.

This is a decade of escalation with a body count attached to it. From rally chants to manifestos to an insurrection to a sitting president naming American cities as acceptable casualties. Every year the rhetoric gets worse. Every year the violence follows. And every time someone acts on the words they were given, the speaker says the same thing: I never told anyone to do that.

They never have to. That is the whole point. Fascism has always run on violence. Stochastic terrorism is how you produce that violence without ever giving a direct order. You just keep talking. And the machine keeps running.

Timeline of Trump Stochastic Terrorism

tied to the laws broken and charges that should have been filed

June 2015 — Trump launches presidential campaign calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals.[Incitement to violence (18 U.S.C. § 373)]↳ August 2015 — Two men in Boston beat a homeless Mexican-American man with a metal pipe. One tells police “Trump was right.”

February 2016 — Trump tells rally crowds to “knock the crap out of” protesters and promises to pay their legal fees.[Solicitation of assault (18 U.S.C. § 373) / Aiding and abetting (18 U.S.C. § 2)]↳ March 2016 — Supporter sucker-punches a protester in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Trump’s staff looks into paying the man’s legal bills.

2016 — University of Pennsylvania researchers find that cities hosting Trump rallies saw a 12 percent spike in reported assaults on rally days. Cities hosting Clinton rallies showed no change.[Documented pattern establishing mens rea for incitement]

August 2016 — Trump suggests “Second Amendment people” could stop Hillary Clinton from appointing judges.[Incitement to violence (18 U.S.C. § 373) / Threatening a presidential candidate (18 U.S.C. § 879)]

August 2017 — Trump says there were “very fine people on both sides” after a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville turns deadly.[Obstruction of justice (18 U.S.C. § 1503) — providing political cover for domestic terrorism]

2017 — Trump tells police officers not to be “too nice” when arresting people.[Deprivation of rights under color of law (18 U.S.C. § 242) — directing officers to use excessive force]

May 2019 — Trump laughs when a rally attendee shouts about shooting asylum seekers at the border.[Incitement to violence (18 U.S.C. § 373)]↳ August 3, 2019 — A man drives ten hours to El Paso, Texas, and murders 22 people. His manifesto uses the phrase “Hispanic invasion of Texas.”

May 2020 — Trump retweets “the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.”[Incitement to violence (18 U.S.C. § 373) / True threat (18 U.S.C. § 875)]

May 2020 — Trump tweets “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”[Incitement to violence (18 U.S.C. § 373) — soliciting lethal force against civilians]

January 6, 2021 — Trump tells a crowd to “fight like hell” and march to the Capitol.[Incitement of insurrection (18 U.S.C. § 2383) / Seditious conspiracy (18 U.S.C. § 2384) / Conspiracy to defraud the United States (18 U.S.C. § 371)]↳ Hundreds storm the building. Over 200 defendants later say they went because Trump told them to. Five people die. 140 officers injured.

October 2022 — David DePape breaks into the Pelosi home and attacks Paul Pelosi with a hammer. Sentenced to life in state prison and 30 years federal.[Trump’s years of demonizing Nancy Pelosi — Incitement to violence (18 U.S.C. § 373)]

December 2023 - January 2024 — Solomon Pena, a failed Republican candidate in New Mexico, pays four men to shoot up the homes of four Democratic state lawmakers. Sentenced to 80 years.[Product of rhetoric designating Democrats as enemies — Incitement to violence (18 U.S.C. § 373)]

September 2023 — Trump posts that General Mark Milley should be executed.[Threatening a federal official (18 U.S.C. § 115) / Solicitation to commit murder (18 U.S.C. § 373)]

November 2023 — Trump calls his political opponents “vermin.”[Incitement to violence (18 U.S.C. § 373) — dehumanization as precursor to violence]

December 2023 — Trump says immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”[Incitement to violence (18 U.S.C. § 373) — dehumanization targeting an ethnic group]

March 2024 — Trump warns of a “bloodbath” if he is not reelected. Shares a video of Biden bound in the back of a pickup truck.[Threatening the President (18 U.S.C. § 871) / Incitement to violence (18 U.S.C. § 373)]

October 2024 — A man fires shots at a Harris campaign office in Tempe, Arizona three separate times over the course of a month.[Product of sustained rhetoric targeting Democrats as enemies — Incitement to violence (18 U.S.C. § 373)]

November 2025 — Trump posts that Democratic lawmakers committed “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” Reposts messages calling for them to be hanged.[Threatening members of Congress (18 U.S.C. § 115) / Solicitation to commit murder (18 U.S.C. § 373)]↳ Senator Elissa Slotkin reports a massive surge in death threats against her and her colleagues.

December 2025 — Rob Reiner and his wife are found dead.↳ Trump posts that Reiner died from “TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.”[Intimidation / Implied justification of violence — Conspiracy against rights (18 U.S.C. § 241)]

April 13, 2025 — A man scales the fence at Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s official residence during Passover and firebombs the home with Molotov cocktails while Shapiro, his wife, and four children are sleeping inside.[Product of sustained demonization of Democratic officials — Incitement to violence (18 U.S.C. § 373)]

June 14, 2025 — A man disguised as a police officer assassinates Minnesota House Democratic Leader Melissa Hortman and her husband in their home. Shoots Democratic State Senator John Hoffman and his wife multiple times the same night. Police find a hit list in his car that includes Rep. Ilhan Omar and Sen. Tina Smith.[Product of sustained rhetoric designating Democrats as enemies of the state — Incitement to violence (18 U.S.C. § 373) / Solicitation to commit murder (18 U.S.C. § 373)]↳ Governor Tim Walz calls it a “politically motivated assassination.”

October 5, 2026 — Trump says “Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego.” The crowd cheers.[Incitement to violence (18 U.S.C. § 373) / Threatening domestic populations on behalf of a foreign adversary — Treason (18 U.S.C. § 2381)]

Other

Bill O’Reilly

2005-2009 — O’Reilly calls Dr. George Tiller “Tiller the Baby Killer” on 28 episodes of his Fox News show.[Incitement to violence (18 U.S.C. § 373 - Solicitation to commit a crime of violence)]↳ May 31, 2009 — George Tiller is shot and killed in his church in Wichita, Kansas.

Tiller the Baby Killer

Between 2005 and 2009, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly discussed abortion provider Dr. George Tiller on 28 episodes of his show. He called him “Tiller the Baby Killer” repeatedly. He compared him to Nazis, to al-Qaeda, to NAMBLA. He said Tiller had “blood on his hands” and that there was “a special place in hell” for him. He told his audience that Tiller “destroys fetuses for just about any reason right up until the birth date for $5,000.” He called his practice a “death mill.”

On May 31, 2009, a man walked into Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kansas, and shot George Tiller in the head while Tiller was serving as an usher. His wife was in the congregation singing in the choir.

O’Reilly never told anyone to kill George Tiller.

He said his name 28 times on national television and painted him as a monster until someone decided to do something about it. When Tiller was murdered, O’Reilly denied any responsibility.

That denial is built into the system. It is part of how stochastic terrorism works.

Sources

Amman, M. & Meloy, J.R. (2021). Stochastic Terrorism: A Linguistic and Psychological Analysis. Perspectives on Terrorism, 15(5).

Amman, M. & Meloy, J.R. (2024). Incitement to Violence and Stochastic Terrorism. Terrorism and Political Violence, 36(2), 234-245.

Winant, G. (2009). O’Reilly’s War on Tiller. Salon, May 31, 2009.

Politifact (2017). Has Donald Trump Never Promoted or Encouraged Violence?

Snopes. Donald Trump Incitement to Violence Timeline.

FACTPAC. An Abridged Timeline of Trump’s Dangerous Rhetoric Encouraging Violence and Hate.

Just Security (2021). Incitement Timeline: Year of Trump’s Actions Leading to the Attack on the Capitol.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). Incitement by the Numbers: January 6 Defendants.

NPR (2025). Trump Says Democratic Lawmakers’ Video Is ‘Seditious Behavior, Punishable by Death.’

NBC News (2025). Trump Suggests Rob Reiner Died Because of His Anti-Trump Views.

ABC News (2026). Trump Suggests Iran Could ‘Take Out’ Los Angeles and San Diego.

Salon (2023). Trump Ramps Up Attack on Military with Call to Execute Top US General.

Britannica. Stochastic Terrorism.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lucasbean.substack.com/subscribe