stochiastic terrorism

Congressman Tom Reed posted the following statement on his official government Facebook page on October 23.

STATEMENT: Today, my family and I were threatened at our home in Corning.

The cowards used a dead animal and a brick with a family member’s name on it to try to intimidate us. We assure everyone such threats only energize us to stand stronger.

We thank the local police and federal authorities, who are already investigating this disgusting attack against my family. 

Across the country, politics has taken a disturbing turn. 

We have to overcome this. I know that we can. We are all Americans first. What unites us is far greater than our political differences

Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that.

— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) October 8, 2020

Dictionary.com provides an unusually detailed definition and description of "stochiastic terrorism." Here is part of their article on the subject.

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:

1. A leader or organization uses rhetoric in the mass media against a group of people.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. This rhetoric is thus called stochastic terrorism because of the way it incites random violence.

I wrote a column two weeks before the 2016 electon entitled "Donald Trump Is An Existential Threat To American Democracy."  I not only stand by that claim; I will double down on it. We are well on our way towards autocracy. Donald Trump has launched an unrelenting assault on the institutions that support our democracy, and his fellow Republicans are either looking the other way or they are rooting for democracy's demise. Mike Lee, a Republican Senator from Utah, let the cat out of the bag. He, at least, would not mind seeing our democracy die.

Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that.

— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) October 8, 2020

Donald Trump has launched an assault on our democracy on multiple fronts.

1. He has politicized the Justice Department to help his friends and attack his enemies.
2. He has attacked our courts and judicial system.
3. He has attacked the free press and made it more dangerous for reporters to cover him.
4. He is a stochiastic terrorist who has endangered the life of Michigan's Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, and others
5. He has refused to commit himself to the peaceful transfer of power if he loses the election