Trump: Campaigning, or Crossing State Lines to Incite a Riot?

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Donald Trump’s visit to Kenosha today will pour more oil than water on the fires of fear and loathing he needs to stoke in order to be re-elected. Which raises a question: Does this visit—for that matter, do his broadcast remarks—constitute campaigning, or are they illegal incitements for his followers, many of them armed, to engage in violence against Blacks, socialists, liberals, and Democrats? And verbal violence against the man who somehow personifies all these un-American identities: Joe Biden.

According to 18 U.S. Code Section 2101:

Whoever travels in interstate or foreign commerce or uses any facility of interstate or foreign commerce, including, but not limited to, the mail, telegraph, telephone, radio, or television, with intent to incite a riot … [s]hall be fined under this title, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

To be sure, Section 2101 hasn’t been updated to include tweeting as a stipulated form of interstate commerce, but it presumably comes under the category of “not limited to” in the statute.

I don’t want to be too harsh on Trump; there have been other traveling campaigners who’ve spread more havoc than he in their wake. Genghis Khan springs to mind. But I don’t want to downplay Trump’s achievement, either. With the help of his friends at Fox News and QAnon, he’s still assembling his Horde.

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