We know about stochastic terrorism. Now we have it clearly spelled out in his own damn words.
From Dictionary dot com,
What does stochastic terrorism mean?
Stochastic terrorism is “the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted.”
The word stochastic, in everyday language, means “random.” Terrorism, here, refers to “violence motivated by ideology.”
Here’s the idea behind stochastic terrorism:
- A leader or organization uses rhetoric in the mass media against a group of people.
- This rhetoric, while hostile or hateful, doesn’t explicitly tell someone to carry out an act of violence against that group, but a person, feeling threatened, is motivated to do so as a result.
- That individual act of political violence can’t be predicted as such, but that violence will happen is much more probable thanks to the rhetoric.
- This rhetoric is thus called stochastic terrorism because of the way it incites random violence.
From an op-ed dated August 4, 2019 in the Washington Post, by Juliette Kayyem, a former assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security,
Public speech that may incite violence, even without that specific intent, has been given a name: stochastic terrorism, for a pattern that can’t be predicted precisely but can be analyzed statistically. It is the demonization of groups through mass media and other propaganda that can result in a violent act because listeners interpret it as promoting targeted violence — terrorism. And the language is vague enough that it leaves room for plausible deniability and outraged, how-could-you-say-that attacks on critics of the rhetoric.Has it ever been more clear that Trump is projecting his dangerous persona on the country?
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