Stochastic Terrorism

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Ran into a new term today- stochastic terrorism. According to Wiktionary–

Noun, (neologism, sociology, social media) The use of mass public communication, usually against a particular individual or group, which

1. incites or inspires acts of terrorism which are statistically probable but happen seemingly at random
2. perpetuates fear through coverage of seemingly random acts of terrorism

The word stochastic refers to being randomly determined–

I like words and this is a term that has a certain interesting tenor to it. I found it in this link. The author quoted Keith Olbermann –

“Donald Trump is a stochastic terrorist. He used stochastic terrorism to get somebody to attack the FBI after the Mar-a-Lago search and within days a man breached a local FBI headquarters to try to kill FBI agents. He used stochastic terrorism to get others to commit the insurrection of January 6. He used stochastic terrorism to inspire somebody to attack Democrats in 2018 and Cesar Sayoc sent out 12 liberals and he had a second list in his computer and I know because I was on it.“

“Trump is not just committing stochastic terrorism, he knows he is doing it, because it has worked for him, so well, and so often.“

The pristine definition of stochastic assumes truly random elements. The crowd responsive to #45 are self-selected and already aligned with him and sympathetic to his machinations, so any incitement is from a presorted set of people. #45’s casting about for someone in the crowd to take compelling action is obviously what he wants. It leads to media buzz focused on him. Stochastic Terrorism has a certain flourish that the word incitement lacks.

Understating #45’s words in milquetoast vocabulary like incitement is perhaps too feeble to capture our attention.

Keith Olbermann is a vocal far-left liberal by GOP measures. But maybe that’s because he pushes back openly and vigorously against conservatives. He may exaggerate a bit but conservatives are not strangers to exaggeration either.

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