Where Trump goes, violence follows
Donald Trump speaks at a fourth-grade level but without him I might never have looked up the word “stochastic.” I began noticing the word in academic circles as Trump made his first run for president in 2016. Stochastic is an adjective, derived from Greek, meaning randomly determined. In social science, it suggests a random probability distribution that may be statistically meaningful without being precisely predictable.
Back then, political scientists weren’t using “stochastic” to describe Trump’s meandering speech patterns, which have only become more disjointed and fantastical. They were talking about the violence that he generates, randomly yet also certainly.
Violence and Trump are inextricable. After Trump and MAGA propagandist Elon Musk spewed lies about the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the wake of Hurricane Helene, threats and harassment prompted FEMA temporarily to withdraw field teams in North Carolina while the agency assessed the danger to its personnel. A man possessing a handgun and rifle was arrested outside a grocery store that was being used as a relief site. He was charged with a misdemeanor — going armed to the terror of the public. “We know that significant misinformation online contributes to threats against response workers on the ground,” North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said in a statement.
The terror of the public has been as essential to Trump’s political identity and MAGA movement as resentment at the rising social status of women and racial minorities. The appeal to
