Unstable Man After Arrest for Threatening the Boston Globe: “Trump Saved America”

Are we still pretending that in the age of Trump, an unstable man in the nation’s highest office cannot signal to other, equally unstable individuals with his unhinged ranting and raving?

Let me be perfectly clear: If someone grabs on to one of Donald Trump’s idiotic tweets and acts out in a way that is violent or otherwise destructive, that person bears the bulk of the blame.

That being said, Trump is president. He has a rabid, unthinking base, who cling to his every incoherent word as if it were holy manna. He has a responsibility to conduct himself professionally, and to use caution in his words.

He has that responsibility. He does not have the common sense ability required to do so.

I can’t think of any major catastrophic occurrences that can be linked back to Trump at this point (if you leave out his election, that is), but we may not know just how close we’ve come.

Now let’s talk about the lunatic arrested on Thursday for threatening the Boston Globe.

Robert Chain, a 68 year old Trump supporter from Encino, California took President Trump’s words about the media to heart, and somewhere in that cracked brain, felt he could breathe threats with no consequences.

Authorities say Chain threatened the Globe in retaliation for its Aug. 16 coordination of a series of editorials condemning President Donald Trump’s suggestion that journalists are “the enemy of the people.” Trump used those words in a tweet Thursday morning, saying “how totally dishonest much of the media is… Enemy of the People!”

Chain allegedly began making threatening phone calls on Aug. 10 when the editorial campaign was announced. Prosecutors say Chain made 14 phone calls to the Globe from August 10-22.

Think about it, O’ ye Republican defenders of the Constitution and the First Amendment: President Trump continuously lashes out at the press, calling them “enemy of the people,” encouraging supporters at his rallies to attack them, belittling them in front of foreign officials. Now, one of his devotees, in “retaliation” of various newspapers writing editorials to condemn the president’s attacks, threatens violence against one of them.

For anyone still defending Trump’s attacks on the press, do keep in mind that when someone threatens the press, they’re not talking about harming paper and words on a page. They’re talking about harming the people that write those words or read those words on camera. They’re talking about actual human lives.

These are people that have friends and families, and they have the right to do their jobs, whether you agree with them, or not, and then go home.

The day the editorials went to print, Chain called the Boston Globe newsroom and “threatened to shoot Globe employees in the head ‘later today, at 4 o’clock,’” U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling said. Due to the threat, Boston Police provided a presence outside the building to protect newspaper employees.

During another call on August 22, Chain said, “As long as you keep attacking the President…I will continue to threat, harass and annoy the Boston Globe, owned by the New York Times, the other fake news,” according to the FBI.

Fake news.

He’s using Trump’s exact words and whether he actually intended to act on his threats, or whether he’s just a loudmouth with more time on his hands than common sense, it would be irresponsible to think he’s the only one picking up the cues being fed to the public by the president.

There are others. You can bet on it.

“Everyone has a right to express their opinion, but threatening to kill people takes it over the line and will not be tolerated,” said Harold Shaw, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Boston Division. “Today’s arrest of Robert Chain should serve a warning to others, that making threats is not a prank, it’s a federal crime.”

I have to remind people here that during the election season, Trump suggested that he would pay the legal fees of any of his rabid dogs that were pinched for attacking protesters at his rallies.

At least one man in North Carolina was gullible enough to take him seriously.

John McGraw, a 78 year old man, took a blindside poke at Rakeem Jones, as deputies led him from the convention hall.

McGraw was arrested and charged with assault and disorderly conduct.

At 78, I doubt the sucker-punch had much wallop, but that’s not the point. He did it, then later expressed his belief that Trump would do as he’d said and would take care of his legal costs (because we all know what Social Security pays the elderly to survive on is atrocious).

Narrator voice: He has not.

Maybe that’s Chain’s belief, as well. Maybe he feels the man he has made more than a president – an idol that must be defended – will see his sacrifice and come to his aid.

Sorry, Chain. Trump prefers those who don’t get captured.

After Chain’s arrest, Jane Bowman, vice president of marketing and strategic partnerships for the Boston Globe issued a statement:

“We are grateful to the FBI, the US Attorney’s Office, the Boston Police, and local authorities in California for the work they did in protecting the Globe while threats were coming in, for investigating the source, and for making this arrest. We couldn’t have asked for a stronger response,” Bowman said. “While it was unsettling for many of our staffers to be threatened in such a way, nobody – really, nobody – let it get in the way of the important work of this institution.”

A subsequent search of Chain’s home turned up 20 guns, there was no evidence, however, that he was planning to travel to Boston to carry out his threats.

Prosecutor Matt Rosenbaum argued for Chain to remain in custody, but defense attorney Andre Townsend argued that Chain had an otherwise clean criminal record and was not a flight risk.

He was arraigned in a Los Angeles federal courtroom, charged with one count of making threatening communications in interstate commerce. He was released on $50,000 bond, but will be transferred to Boston, soon.

So is this really an act of worship to Trump, or am I overreacting?

“I would like to make one statement. America was saved when Donald J. Trump was elected president,” Chain told reporters on his way out of court.

Yeah. And I thought it was a special kind of stupid when Obama worshipers labeled anyone who spoke out against him as “racist.”

It was stupid, but this takes the cake.

And if you think Trump cares about this, or any other incident where the press are targeted by his indoctrinated lunatics:

I just cannot state strongly enough how totally dishonest much of the Media is. Truth doesn’t matter to them, they only have their hatred & agenda. This includes fake books, which come out about me all the time, always anonymous sources, and are pure fiction. Enemy of the People!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2018