This is the same kind of reasoning that led to the list of about a hundred people that the Clintons were supposed to have murdered, something still taken as gospel by large numbers of regular Infowars listeners and other sophisticated voters.
Trump is odious in more ways than I can count. I’m sure he has destroyed lives, even if only by irresponsible decision-making and cheating his suppliers. I’m also sure that if the US goes full-on fascist, he’ll be happy to sit on his imperial golden throne and chuckle while the blackshirts go to town on his political enemies.
But the idea that – before becoming president(*) – he sanctioned or subcontracted cold-blooded murder doesn’t really fit with my picture of the man. I may be giving him and capitalists generally too much credit, but I think that the practice of businessmen murdering their enemies is relatively rare, at least in the US. Even someone as sociopathic as Trump will recognize that the payoff is too small, the risks too large. If you hire someone to kill for you, that person holds your entire future hostage. Trump is too addicted to ‘winning’ to take any risks that he can’t just walk away from (preferably leaving someone else to pick up the tab).
(*) Since becoming president, of course, he’s had access to the full power of the state’s murder apparatus, and has doubtless signed off on plenty of lethal operations. But that’s usually considered a different matter.
