If †rump Built Anything, It Is a Culture War and Here Is Exactly Why
- Kal Inois
- 1 day ago
- 12 min read
Every time there is an act of political violence in America, the same narrative appears within hours: both sides are equally to blame. Democrats are just as violent as Republicans. The left is radicalizing just like the right. It is a culture war, and everyone shares the responsibility.
That narrative is a lie. It is a documented, data-refuted, peer-reviewed lie. And it exists to protect one man who, more than any other single figure in modern American history, has spent a decade deliberately cultivating a political culture in which violence is normalized, celebrated, and used as a tool of power.
That man is Donald †rump.
But here is the question that almost no one is asking: why? Why does a sitting president need a culture war? Why does he need Americans at each other's throats, distracted, enraged, and exhausted? Why does he need the noise to never stop?
The answer, as with everything about this regime, leads back to the same place.
The Epstein files.
The Data First: Who Is Actually Committing Political Violence in America?
Before we get to †rump's words, let us establish what the evidence says about who is actually committing political violence, because the answer is not what his regime wants you to believe.
†rump, his allies, and Republican media outlets have spent years insisting that the left is more violent than the right — that antifa is a terrorist organization, that Black Lives Matter protesters are domestic extremists, that Democrats are the true instigators of political violence in America. They repeat it loudly, constantly, and without evidence. Because the actual evidence destroys their argument entirely.
Right-wing extremist violence has been responsible for approximately 75% to 80% of all U.S. domestic terrorism deaths since 2001, according to government and independent analyses documented by PBS NewsHour. The deadliest domestic terrorist attacks in recent American history — the 2015 Charleston church shooting, the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue massacre, the 2019 El Paso Walmart attack — were all carried out by right-wing extremists motivated by white supremacy and anti-immigrant ideology.
A peer-reviewed study published in the National Institutes of Health found that across two independent datasets covering real-world politically motivated violence, radical acts perpetrated by individuals associated with left-wing causes are significantly less likely to be violent than those associated with right-wing causes. The same research found that just prior to the COVID pandemic, more than 80% of homicides related to extremist violence in the U.S. were attributable to right-wing extremism, and that in a 2022 analysis of more than 1,500 extremist events, right-wing extremists were twice as likely as left-wing extremists to resort to violence.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies confirmed that in the past decade, left-wing attacks have killed 13 victims, compared with 112 for right-wing attacks and 82 for jihadist attacks. In terms of lethality, left-wing political violence is not remotely comparable to right-wing political violence. It is not close.
A PRRI survey from January 2026 found that two-thirds of Americans, 67%, believe political leaders' failure to condemn violent rhetoric contributes significantly to violent actions in society. Independents are 10 percentage points more likely to attribute responsibility for political violence to right-wing groups than left-wing groups. Even among people without strong partisan affiliation, the data points in one direction.
†rump and his regime would have you believe that the violence is coming from the left. The peer-reviewed, government-documented, independently verified data says otherwise. The left is not worse. The left is not equal. By every measurable standard, right-wing political violence is more frequent, more deadly, and more organized. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you, and they know it.
While Protecting the Right, †rump Is Weaponizing the Law Against Those Who Fight It
If you needed one single example that exposes exactly whose side this regime is on, this is it.
The Ku Klux Klan Act is a Reconstruction-era federal law passed in 1871 specifically to protect Black Americans and their allies from KKK violence and terrorism. It was designed to empower the federal government to go after white supremacist groups that were terrorizing newly freed people across the South. For over 150 years it has been one of the most important civil rights tools in American law.
†rump's regime is now using it against protesters who oppose IÇE raids.
†rump's DØJ Civil Rights Division chief Harmeet Dhillon threatened to use the KKK Act to prosecute protesters who demonstrated against IÇE raids at a Minnesota church, declaring on a conservative podcast: "The fullest force of the federal government is going to come down and prevent this from happening and put people away for a long time." The people she was threatening with a law designed to stop the KKK were Americans exercising their First Amendment right to protest immigration enforcement at a house of worship.
At the same time, the †rump regime indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center on April 21, 2026, the civil rights organization that spent decades using exactly those same civil suit tools to financially destroy the KKK and hold white supremacists accountable for their violence. The SPLC's most consequential case resulted in a $7 million judgment that bankrupted the United Klans of America after the 1981 lynching of 19-year-old Michael Donald in Alabama. The †rump DØJ is now going after the organization that broke the Klan's back.
As Public Notice wrote: "From a legal standpoint, this indictment is crap. From a political standpoint, it's an effort to avenge the KKK and enshrine white supremacy in America."
And the ƒBI ended its relationship with the SPLC in October 2025, claiming that monitoring extremist organizations violated those organizations' free speech rights. The ƒBI, which is currently investigating 13 missing and dead nuclear and aerospace scientists it believes may have been targeted by a foreign adversary, decided that keeping tabs on the Proud Boys and white supremacist groups was somehow a violation of their rights.
Let that sink in. †rump's regime is using a law designed to stop the KKK against peaceful protesters. It is indicting the organization that financially destroyed the KKK. It is protecting white supremacist groups from federal monitoring. And it is doing all of this while insisting that the left is the violent one.
This is not both sides. This has never been both sides. This is one side, and it is not ours.
Is Any of This Even Legal? Can a President Really Talk Like This?
Millions of Americans began asking this question in 2015, but the answer reveals something darker: †rump did not adopt this rhetoric when he entered politics. This is simply who he is. The presidency did not change his language. It amplified it and made it lethal.
The First Amendment protects free speech broadly, including for the president of the United States. †rump cannot be arrested simply for calling his opponents "vermin" or saying a protester should be "carried out on a stretcher." Political speech, even inflammatory political speech, is generally protected under the Constitution.
But here is what the law does say and what is being systematically ignored.
The Constitution's Article II, Section 4 states that the President "shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." Legal scholars have long held that "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" includes the abuse of presidential power, such as using the office to incite violence against political opponents, deploy the military against American citizens, or weaponize federal agencies against personal enemies. †rump has done all three.
Federal law 18 U.S.C. § 875 makes it a crime to transmit threats to injure another person across state lines, including online. His posts calling for Democratic lawmakers to be "punished by death" have been flagged by legal experts as potentially crossing this line, though no prosecution has been brought because the DØJ he controls has no interest in pursuing it.
The Hatch Act restricts federal employees from using their official positions for political purposes. It has been routinely violated by †rump and his cabinet with no consequence, because enforcement depends on the very DØJ that †rump controls.
The brutal truth is this: the primary legal mechanism for holding a president accountable for abusing the power of his office is impeachment, and Congress has repeatedly refused to use it. That is not a legal failure. It is a political one. And it is one that every American voter has the power to address.
The Words: A Documented Record of a Decade of Incitement
†rump did not stumble into violent rhetoric. He chose it, escalated it, and has deployed it with increasing intensity every year since 2015. This is not characterization. It is documented fact.
Political scientists at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and The Conversation analyzed nine years of Trump speeches and found that the share of words associated with violence in his speeches rose from 0.6% in 2016 to 1.6% in 2024. For context, the proportion of violent words in Barack Obama's speeches was 0.79%. By 2024, †rump's violent vocabulary had surpassed nearly every other democratic politician in the world and was approaching levels seen in authoritarian regimes. A separate UCLA study analyzing 99 Trump speeches confirmed the trend, finding that Trump uses "them," targeting out-groups, at far higher rates than any other recent major party presidential candidate.
Here is a documented timeline of what that rhetoric actually sounds like:
2015: †rump told a campaign crowd in Iowa he would like to "punch" a protester "in the face." He told supporters that if they saw someone about to throw a tomato, they should "knock the crap out of them" and promised to pay their legal fees.
2016: †rump called Mexican immigrants "rapists" and "criminals." He called for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States." He told rally crowds that protesters should be "carried out on a stretcher."
2020: After George Floyd's murder sparked nationwide protests, †rump tweeted "when the looting starts, the shooting starts," a phrase with documented origins in anti-Black police violence. He called protesters "thugs" and demanded governors "dominate" them.
2021: On January 6, †rump told thousands of supporters to "fight like hell" outside the Capitol, then watched the ensuing insurrection on television for hours without calling for it to stop.
2022-2023: †rump called political opponents "vermin" and "enemies from within." He compared immigrants to animals. He called for investigations, prosecutions, and imprisonment of political rivals.
2024: At a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, †rump said that "one really violent day" would end crime in the United States. He said the country needed to be "liberated" from its own government.
2025: †rump called anti-IÇE protesters in Los Angeles "animals" and "enemies." He called for California Governor Gavin Newsom and New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani to be arrested. He reposted an AI-generated video of himself dumping sewage on protesters. He made multiple social media posts about six Democratic lawmakers who had recorded a video reminding military members they were not required to follow illegal orders, calling them guilty of "sedition" and suggesting they should be "punished by death."
2026: Following the death of former ƒBI Director Robert Mueller, †rump posted on Truth Social: "Good, I'm glad he's dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!" Following the killing of Rob and Michele Reiner, †rump mocked the deaths on Truth Social, claiming they died from "Trump derangement syndrome." On April 1, 2026, †rump declared on primetime television regarding Iran: "We're going to bring them back to the Stone Age, where they belong." On April 6, he told reporters: "We have a strategy that would see every bridge in Iran destroyed by midnight tomorrow, with every power facility rendered inoperable, burning, and exploding beyond repair. I mean total annihilation by midnight." On April 7, he threatened to obliterate "a whole civilization" if Iran did not comply with his demands.
The documented record of †rump-linked violence is staggering. It includes the January 6 Capitol insurrection, the assassination of Charlie Kirk by a man radicalized by right-wing politics, the killing of Renee Nicole Good by an IÇE agent during a †rump-ordered enforcement surge in Minneapolis, the shooting of Marimar Martinez by a federal agent during a †rump immigration operation, the assault on Rep. Ilhan Omar, and now the WHCD shooting, which was carried out by a man whose manifesto cited every documented abuse of the †rump regime as his motivation.
†rump responded to the WHCD shooting, in which his own security agent was shot, by immediately pivoting to a press conference plugging his personal ballroom project. Not concern for the wounded officer. Not reflection on the political climate. A real estate advertisement.
The Culture War Is a Weapon — And Here Is What It Is Protecting
Now here is the part of the story that the mainstream media refuses to tell you.
†rump does not sustain a culture war because he is impulsive. He does not traffic in violent rhetoric because he lacks self-control. He is not unhinged. He is strategic. And the strategy serves a specific, urgent, self-interested purpose.
The culture war is cover. The violence is noise. And what the noise is drowning out is the Epstein files.
An analyst interviewed by Al Jazeera confirmed it directly: after the Iran war began, Google searches for the Epstein files plummeted. The war worked, at least temporarily, as a distraction. Rep. Jamie Raskin has revealed that †rump's name appears more than one million times in the unredacted Epstein files and that †rump's DØJ redacted 96% of those references from the public release. NPR has documented that the ƒBI interviewed a woman who accused †rump of child sexual abuse four separate times, and that the DØJ secretly removed those files from the public database.
A man with nothing to hide does not wage a culture war. A man with nothing to hide does not start a war with Iran four days after NPR publishes an investigation into his alleged child sexual abuse. A man with nothing to hide does not call the Epstein files a "hoax," fire the agents investigating them, appoint his former personal criminal defense attorney to oversee their release, and pardon the woman who was at the center of the network.
†rump needs Americans to be angry at each other. He needs the news cycle to be full of violence, outrage, and chaos. He needs you distracted, exhausted, and convinced that "both sides" are equally responsible for the breakdown of American civil life. Because the moment the noise stops, the moment Americans pause long enough to read what is in those files, the game is over.
The culture war is not something that happened to †rump. It is something he built. It is a tool. And it is protecting a man who the ƒBI has investigated for child sexual abuse, who a federal jury found liable for sexual battery, and whose name appears over a million times in the files of the most notorious child sex trafficker in American history.
What He Has Called Democrats and Political Opponents
For those who still believe this is a "both sides" problem, here is a partial list of what †rump has publicly called his political opponents — on the record, documented, and unretracted:
"Vermin." "Enemies from within." "Lunatics." "Thugs." "Animals." "Radical left." "Human scum." "Nasty." "Horrible people." "Very bad people." "Crooked." "Sleepy." "Crazy Nancy." "Pencil neck." "Liddle." "Cryin'." "Low IQ." "Pocahontas." "Monster." "Witch hunt." "Traitors." "Seditionists." Deserving of death.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a former U.S. Attorney, delivered a 48-minute Senate floor speech connecting †rump's escalating rhetoric directly to the Epstein files and the Russia investigation, noting that †rump calls things "hoaxes" precisely when they are true and threatening. The speech has been viewed more than 2.2 million times.
The Responsibility Is Not Shared Equally
Two-thirds of Americans already know that political leaders who fail to condemn violent rhetoric are responsible for the violence that follows. The data is clear that right-wing political violence vastly exceeds left-wing political violence in both frequency and lethality. And the documented record of one man's decade of incitement is public, sourced, and irrefutable.
The people at the WHCD shooting, the people at the January 6 insurrection, the IÇE agent who killed Renee Good, the federal agent who shot Marimar Martinez — none of them acted in a vacuum. They acted in a political environment that was deliberately constructed, carefully maintained, and strategically amplified by a man who needs the noise to never stop.
Because when the noise stops, the only story left is this one.
And Donald †rump, who the ƒBI investigated for child sexual abuse, who a jury found liable for rape, and whose name appears over a million times in the Epstein files his own regime is hiding from you, cannot afford for that story to be told.
So he keeps the noise going. He calls his opponents vermin. He threatens to obliterate civilizations. He mocks the deaths of his enemies. He deploys the military against his own citizens. He wages wars. He manufactures crises.
And he calls it a culture war, as if both sides built it together.
They did not. He built it. Alone and on purpose. To survive.
What You Can Do
The most powerful thing you can do in the face of deliberate, manufactured chaos is refuse to be distracted. And then act.
Sign the petition to block a Maxwell pardon. Pardoning Maxwell is the final act of the Epstein coverup that is driving all of this:
Change.org: No Pardon for Maxwell
Call your representatives directly using 5calls.org. They provide scripts, your representatives' direct phone numbers, and track your calls. Demand that your senators and representative take the following actions:
Publicly oppose any pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell
Support the full, unredacted release of all Epstein files
Invoke Rule IX — the Senate rule that allows impeachment proceedings to be initiated — and begin the process of impeaching Donald †rump for his documented high crimes and misdemeanors against the American people. Read our full explainer on Rule IX and how it works here.
Keep reading. Keep sharing. Support the journalists and independent outlets doing the work corporate media will not do.
And the next time someone tells you both sides are equally responsible for America's culture of political violence, send them this article.
Then ask them to explain the Epstein files.
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