On Oct. 14, President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted a video on Truth Social of a deadly strike placed on a boat off the coast of Venezuela. With a highly active social media presence, Trump is known for his frequent communication with the public via sites like X and Truth Social. However, posting videos of a lethal mission is a new development and is indicative of a larger trend towards violence under the Trump administration.
Violence under U.S. presidents is not new. In fact, some hold the view that every post-World War II president has been a war criminal. What is novel is the public nature in which Trump enacts his violence. During his 2016 campaign, Trump claimed at a rally that if he shot someone in the middle of Times Square, his supporters were so loyal that they would still stick by him. In 2020, he told the far-right extremist group, the Proud Boys, to simply “stand back and stand by” instead of denouncing their violent actions. A 2024 study even found that, not only did Trump’s use of violent language increase over time, but he has used such language at a rate greater than any of the other major party candidates analyzed.
The impacts of being exposed to violence have been well-documented, including both increased short-term aggressive behavior and long-term desensitization to violence. Once a person becomes desensitized to violent acts, they are able to plan and even execute such acts without feeling guilt. While this type of research is often conducted in regards to violence in movies or video games, this trend can seem to apply to videos of actual violent acts uploaded to social media. Even increases in violent language can increase the output of such acts. Following Trump’s 2016 campaign, which was filled with politically-violent rhetoric, counties that held a Trump campaign rally experienced a 226% increase in hate crimes compared to comparable counties.
Trump is not trying to desensitize his citizens to all violence. Following the assassination of right-wing internet figure Charlie Kirk, Trump signed an executive order intended to restrict political violence. The Department of Homeland Security condemned the increase in attacks against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers following their increased deployment. Theoretically, the president does not want America to be a more violent society — he seems to simply want to control who the violence targets. While the DHS claims that death threats against ICE officers increased by 8,000%, research studies also report over 200 attacks on members of the press during Trump’s first term, which did not receive nearly the same level of disgust. When former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman, a Democrat, and her husband were murdered in their home, the president barely acknowledged the event.
Ultimately, Trump’s condemnation of violence, or lack thereof, appears to hinge upon which groups are deemed as worthy and unworthy victims. Along with the video of the lethal attack on the Venezuelan boat, Hegseth wrote in his caption that those killed were narco-terrorists, ostensibly implying that the men on the boat deserved a celebrated death due to their criminal activity. The Trump administration seems to be making a concerted effort to desensitize us to violence against specific groups, whether that be Venezuelan drug traders, protesters or democratic leaders. As humans, our natural response to a video of a mother being attacked by a group of men would be horror. But calculated labels like ‘immigrant’ and ‘ICE officers’ attempt to prime us to see violence against any dissenters, like protesters in Portland, Ore., or New York City, as normal. Desensitization of violence might start out with groups like drug cartels, but it could quickly spread to any dissenter, including you. In the face of Trump’s efforts to incite mass violence, we must fight back with empathy.
