A constitutional law professor at Drexel University has taken to the pages of Rolling Stone to accuse Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump of an esoteric form of terrorism that, he says, is exactly comparable to the rhetoric of “Republican Christianists” who have, allegedly, urged violence against doctors who perform abortions.
Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law is, of course, most famous because of a 2015 incident involving another professor who accidentally sent a pornography website link — to an entire class — containing a video of a woman stuffing herself with a generous bounty of anal beads. (RELATED: Law Professor Emails SHOCKING Porn Video To Entire Class)
The professor accusing Trump of terrorism is David S. Cohen.
For the record, the professor who sent around the anal beads video is Lisa T. McElroy.
In his Rolling Stone op-ed, which appeared on Tuesday, Cohen takes Trump to task for Trump’s comments urging “the Second Amendment people” to act against his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
“If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks,” Trump told a Wilmington, North Carolina crowd. “Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is. I don’t know.”
Cohen believes Trump was, in fact, planting a mental seed and that it could cause one of his supporters to assassinate Clinton.
“What Trump said was that a particular group — those who are defined by rallying around guns — should do something about Clinton and her judicial nominees,” Cohen argues. “What can people who rally around guns do that’s different than others? Use those guns.”
Cohen believes that “enough people will hear Trump’s comments and think he’s calling for people to take up arms against Clinton, her judges or both,” and that “there will undoubtedly be some people who think he was serious and consider the possibility.”
Trump’s tactic, Cohen says, is “stochastic terrorism,” “an obscure and non-legal term that has been occasionally discussed in the academic world” for about 15 years. (Merriam-Webster defines “stochastic” as “involving a random variable” or “involving chance.”)
Cohen links to a 2011 blog post entitled “Stochastic Terrorism” and also to a 2015 article by psychologist Valerie Tarico entitled “Christianist Republicans Systematically Incited Colorado Clinic Assault.”
“Trump puts out the dog whistle knowing that some dog will hear it, even though he doesn’t know which dog,” Cohen writes.
“Those of us who work against anti-abortion violence unfortunately know all about this,” he says.
“A public figure with access to the airwaves or pulpit demonizes a person or group of persons.” Then, the demonized person or group is “gradually dehumanized.” There are “jokes about violence” and “analogies to past ‘purges.'” Finally, “violence erupts” and “the public figures who have incited the violence condemn it — claiming no one could possibly have foreseen the ‘tragedy.'”
According to Cohen, this chain of events “explains Donald Trump’s campaign against Hillary Clinton to a letter” — from calling Clinton “Crooked Hillary,” to repeatedly identifying Clinton as a criminal, to Trump’s statement about what “Second Amendment people” might do. No Trump supporter has tried to assassinate Clinton yet, Cohen observes, but “the lone wolves out there” might. In the event, “we know exactly what Trump and his supporters will say: that they never could have foreseen this tragedy.”
Cohen teaches Constitutional Law — a required course for law students at Drexel as well as a course called Sex, Gender and the Law.
McElroy, the professor who sent the anal beads video, teaches Family Law, Legal Methods and a Supreme Court Seminar.
She mistakenly sent the anal beads video link to her students back in April 2015.
“I thought this article on brief writing would be interesting to all of you,” the text of the McElroy’s corresponding email explained.
The decidedly-not-safe-for-work link went to a video at Pornhub.com, the gi-normous pornography website. The video was very appropriately titled “She Loves Her Anal Beads.” As of 2015, the video had received positive reviews from 75 percent of Pornhub’s discerning porn viewers.
The resulting scandal took on the name “Beadgate” among law students at Drexel.
In 2010, a happier time for the Dartmouth College and Harvard Law grad, McElroy appeared as an effusive contestant on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” She won $5,000.
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