After the murder of Charlie Kirk, President Donald Trump said rhetoric from “the radical left” is “directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today.” Trump wasted no time fanning the flames of violence: “My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it.”
Later he told Fox News that left-wing radicals “are the problem” and not right-wing radicals. “The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don’t want to see crime,” the president said on Fox and Friends. “The radicals on the left are the problem, and they’re vicious and they’re horrible, and they’re politically savvy.”
Never has a dead metaphor from 505 years ago (Cervantes, “Don Quioxite”) screamed so loudly in my ears: “The pot calling the kettle black.”
My moderate thesis is simply that Donald Trump uses the most violent rhetoric of any president in history. And he is empowered by a legion of followers at home with violence. His MAGA horde, long tired of losing, now only lusts for power by any means.
“Donald Trump uses the most violent rhetoric of any president in history.”
A biblical analogy: The man of lawlessness
My purpose is to give the evidence for Trump’s violent rhetoric and ways. I start with a biblical analogy from 2 Thessalonians 2. Paul introduces “a person of lawlessness.” A cursory review of Trump’s disdain for the law and Constitution makes it easy to portray him as such a person. Trump has belittled the Supreme Court, attacked judges, lawyers, prosecutors, the families of judges and the rule of law. He has insisted he can do whatever he wants as president.
Trump’s entire agenda is hostile to the rule of law, the Constitution, democracy and democratic ideals. And it is all decidedly unethical.
New Testament professor emeritus Earl J. Richard says: “The lawless one is characterized by anomia, a term describing willful opposition to the law or a sinful person.” I argue in Good and Evil in the Garden of Democracy that Trump is the personification of evil. Trump fits the definition of evil biblically, rhetorically and philosophically.
His evil hinges on his practice of lying. His lies fill his speeches, posts and announcements. His every utterance constitutes a lie.
In the New Testament, Paul defines the lawless man as one who “opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God.”
A major component of Trump’s violence is seen in his pretensions and bragging. He is “a stable genius,” doesn’t need advisers, is “smarter than his generals,” knows more about everything than anybody, “I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”
Evidence of Trump’s violent rhetoric and actions
Trump has left a trail of violence across his career. He never hides and often brags about his violent ways, his toughness, meanness and willingness to do what he wants to do. We know but have not really focused our attention on a president who has become the definition of the “lawless one.”
“Trump has left a trail of violence across his career.”
His violent tropes include nods to a mythic past, anti-intellectualism, unreality, victimhood, law-and-order appeals to the heartland and dismantling the social safety net, all used to inflame what Colleen Kelly, in The Trump Presidency: Democratic Fatigue or Fascism?, calls “popular currents of authoritarianism, racism, nationalism, reactionary religion, misogyny, homophobia” and other resentments.
America’s violent past rears its ugly head in Trump. The more violent the president becomes, the more MAGA evangelicals attempt to “whitewash” America’s grievous and manifold violent past.
His use of bastardized religious language suggests he is washing the robes of white people in his own blood, shed in his assassination attempt, to show how “the washed in the blood” ones come forth “white as snow.”
The evidence is unanimous
Pretending we had no idea about Trump’s propensity for violence is not a viable excuse. The warnings during his first term were prolific and powerful. The canaries in the mine were the rhetorical scholars — the men and women who study and analyze and write about presidential rhetoric, character and emotions.
The most complete analysis of Trump’s rhetorical violence is the work of Robert Ivie. In Trump’s Unwitting Prophecy, Ivie details the belligerent tone of Trump’s rhetoric. For example, in his Harrisburg rally Trump “stitched a thematic thread of militancy, linking military, police, and border patrol into a single motif of personal safety and homeland security” dedicated to deporting “illegals.” He spoke of children “viciously killed, violently killed by illegal immigrants.”
He exposes Trump’s speeches as a rhetoric of antagonism moving toward authoritarianism. He outlines Trump’s “militant mindset” and violent themes including resentment, nativism, nationalism, triumphalism and militarism. His violent mannerisms encompass outrageous statements, intolerance, conspiracy theories, economic fear, racism, religious bigotry, antifeminism and hostility toward history and science, the media and the establishment.
“One of the most striking trends in Trump’s rhetoric is the sharp rise in his use of violent vocabulary.”
The Conversation, a group of political scientists who analyzed Trump’s campaign and presidential speeches from 2015 through 2024, found one of the most striking trends in Trump’s rhetoric is the sharp rise in his use of violent vocabulary. The share of words associated with violence rose from 0.6% in 2016 to 1.6% in 2024 in Trump’s speeches. As a comparison, the proportion of violent words in 40 randomly chosen weekly radio addresses by Barack Obama was 0.79%.
By 2024, Trump’s use of violent language had surpassed that of nearly all other democratic politicians we considered, approximating that of authoritarian figures such as Kim Jong Un and Fidel Castro.
Trump’s trail of violence
My experience, in ongoing conversations with MAGA evangelicals, is their repudiation of the evidence I have provided. Since I believe words matter, I decided to provide a partial list of the violent rhetoric of Trump in his own words.
- “If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously, OK? Just knock the hell — I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees. I promise, I promise.”
- Trump said of former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney: “She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see how she feels about it … when the guns are trained on her face.”
- “I’d like to punch him in the face.”
- “They said to me, ‘What do you think of waterboarding?’ I said, ‘I think it’s great, but I don’t think we go far enough.’ It’s true, it’s true — right? We don’t go far enough. We don’t go far enough.”
- “I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad.”
- “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
- “And I’ll tell you something — that’s the way it has to be. There has to be retribution when you have crime like this.”
- “I don’t fucking care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me.”
- “You tell the reporter, ‘Who is it?’ And the reporter will either tell you or not. And if the reporter doesn’t want to tell you, it’s bye-bye, the reporter goes to jail. And when the reporter learns that he’s going to be married in two days to a certain prisoner that’s extremely strong, tough and mean, he will say, ‘You know’ … I think I’m going to give you the information.’”
- “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”
- “Well, revenge does take time. I will say that. And sometimes revenge can be justified, Phil, I have to be honest.”
- And they’re very dangerous — they’re Marxists and Communists and fascists. … They’re dangerous for our country. If you have a smart president, they can all be handled. The more difficult are, you know, the Pelosis, these people, they’re so sick; they’re so evil.”
With obvious disdain, Trump discounts his violent rhetoric as “truthful hyperbole.” Aristotle argued hyperboles “are adolescent, for they exhibit vehemence” and are mostly spoken by “those in anger.” MAGA keeps pretending he is their strong man and savior.
Herein lies the double danger of Trump’s “truthful hyperbole.” Hyperbole itself is a form a violence. The president is not kidding or joking. He is not simply blowing off steam. He is a man of violence and he has attracted a gang of violence lovers.
In 2 Thessalonians 2, Paul also says there is a “restraining force” keeping the Lawless One from taking full control. I see that force as a dissident force resisting the anti-democracy and authoritarian violence of Trump. I see a determined band willing to oppose the violence MAGA evangelicals call peace, with the precarious peace of Jesus who insisted, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”
Rodney W. Kennedy is a pastor and writer in New York state. He is the author of 11 books, including his latest, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit.