Politics

“IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” Trump wrote on Truth Social Friday.

The Trump campaign has since said the post was not intended to be threatening.

"IF A, [THEN] B" is the logical format here. The B statement, "I'M COMING AFTER YOU!" identifies several things:

• "I'M" identifies the actor as "the person writing the message, in this case, Donald Trump.
• "COMING AFTER" identifies the action to be undertaken by the actor. In this context, where the statement is made in correlation to federal conspiracy charges against the actor, Donald Trump, it is fair to interpret this action as "some kind of court proceeding." Whether that means civil litigation or criminal charges (when/if Trump regains the influence to press for such charges) is unclear. It could further mean Trump again marshalling his violent supporters to engage in threats of or actual physical violence. Since part of this situation includes Trump having already done that, this interpretation is tantamount to an admission by Trump that he is fully aware that he did foment a violent attempted coup on Congress on January 6, 2021. In any event, "COMING AFTER" suggests a set of circumstances which will be undesired by and possibly harmful to the object of the action.
• "YOU" defines the object of the statement, "whoever is reading this."
• Furthermore, the "ALL CAPS" and "!" connote at least a sense of urgency, or an heightened level of gravity to the statement.

So, translated, "I'M COMING AFTER YOU!" in this case means "Donald Trump intends to make undesirable and possibly harmful things happen to the person reading this post." All by itself, that is a threat.

But there is the qualifying "A" statement, "YOU GO AFTER ME." As above:

• The actor is "YOU," whoever is reading this statement, or whoever meets the qualification laid out by the statement.
• The action is "GO AFTER," again, cause undesirable or harmful things to happen.
• The object is "ME," the person writing the message, Donald Trump.

Let's run it all together:

"If a person causes undesirable and possibly harmful things to happen to Donald Trump, then Donald Trump will cause undesirable and possibly harmful things to happen to that person."

Strictly speaking, this statement does not preclude Donal Trump from causing undesirable and possible harmful things to happen to a given person even if that person does not cause such things to happen to Donald Trump - only that if you cause such things, then Donald Trump will cause such things to happen to you. But in general, and if/then statement like this tends to include the subtext of "If not A, then not B."

This statement is a threat; that is undeniable. Is it possible for the statement, while clearly being threatening, to not have been intended to be threatening? I don't think intent is even relevant. As an analogy, if you have an understanding of what handguns do, and you point a handgun that you know to be loaded at someone's head, and you pull the trigger, and the person you are pointing at is shot and killed, you do not get a free pass if you just say "I didn't intend to kill them."

Donald Trump has a firm enough grasp on the English language and the context in which he used it to understand that when he publically announced, "IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I'M COMING AFTER YOU!" could and would be received as a threat, and he chose to make that announcement. If he "really" had some other intent, or if the act of making that statement with full knowledge that it could and would be received as a threat is itself proof of threatening intent doesn't matter anywhere near as much as the threatening statement having been made.