As political violence escalates in the United States, chaos is spreading and democracy itself is under threat. The words of anger, ill-considered and increasingly crude, are accelerant on the American bonfire.

A repost from 13 October 2025

When President Donald Trump told his top generals and admirals, “It’s a war from within… we’re under invasion from within,” he assumed the role as provocateur-in-chief.

Back in 1942, the US Supreme Court ruled that some words like these, by their very utterance, could shatter the peace by inciting violence. That wise guidance has been ignored by Trump and many of those he declares his enemies. They are forgetting that violence is a contagion.

After the shooting of the MAGA crusader, Charlie Kirk, Trump boasted that he did not forgive his enemies. He hated them. By toying with the idea of invoking the National Emergencies Act of 1976 or more radically the 1807 Insurrection Act, Trump declared that he was ready to call out the military and federalise control of the National Guard to “straighten out, one by one” cities run by the Democrats including New York, Los Angeles, Memphis, Chicago and Washington DC. He claimed, without evidence, that Portland, Oregon was “burning down" because of domestic terrorists.

Trump’s vanquished rival, Kamala Harris, summed up her adversaries this week with, “These motherfuckers are crazy!” She is enjoined by Democrat governors and mayors snarling that Trump is a “wanna-be king”, a “fascist,” constantly “lying to fabricate a dystopian crisis” to cower or purge his political foes. The........

© Pearls and Irritations