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The claim that “the way [Trump] handled himself in the last 60 days" marks some sort of dramatic change in his actions and rhetoric is not credible. He has employed violent language & explicitly called his supporters to violence since his 2016 campaign./1 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-weak-mob-attack/2021/01/10/620f284a-5223-11eb-83e3-322644d82356_story.html?tid=ss_tw
In 2019 he said, "I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – 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/" /2 https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/434110-trump-suggests-that-things-could-get-very-bad-if-military-police
Here's an article from _March 2016_, well before he got the nomination, about "all the times Trump has called for violence at his rallies."/3 https://mashable.com/2016/03/12/trump-rally-incite-violence/
In August 2016, he hinted at the possibility that his "Second Amendment" supporters might shoot Hillary Clinton: “If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know.”/4 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/us/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton.html
As the protests responding to the murder of George Floyd began, Trump said "when the looting starts, the shooting starts," echoing a phrase used by segregationists./5 https://www.vox.com/identities/2020/5/29/21274754/racist-history-trump-when-the-looting-starts-the-shooting-starts
His tweet, "LIBERATE MICHIGAN!; LIBERATE MINNESOTA!; LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!," preceded the violent breaching of the MI state capitol by white supremacists./6
Speaking to law enforcement officials in 2017, Trump encouraged police officers to be "rough" with the people they arrest./7 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/07/28/trumps-speech-encouraging-police-to-be-rough-annotated/
In 2017, he tweeted a video of him body-slamming CNN. /8 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/critics-pounce-trump-cnn-wrestling-tweet/story?id=48405044
Well before last week, Trump's violent language repeatedly abetted acts of violence./9 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/blame-abc-news-finds-17-cases-invoking-trump/story?id=58912889
An undercurrent of violence, which not infrequently became explicit, has been a consistent through-line of the Trump campaign and presidency. Nobody should be able to claim to be shocked by his incitement to violence last week./10
