Lawmaker Waters has repeatedly called for the impeachment of US President Donald Trump, accelerating her demands following the implementation of a wildly unpopular White House ‘zero tolerance' border policy on undocumented immigrants that has seen thousands of children — many very small — forcibly separated from their parents and placed in detention cages.
The president, escalating the anger by tweeting that Waters was a person of "extraordinarily low IQ," reacted to her wounded animal reference by warning that she should "Be careful what you wish for," a remark seen by many in DC as a veiled threat implicitly giving permission to Trump supporters to use gun violence against the 79-year-old career Democrat, cited by The Hill.
After two additional immigration rallies in Arizona and Texas featuring Waters as a guest speaker were called off last week due to what security organizations regarded as a "very serious death threat," the lawmaker detailed ways in which Trump and his supporters contribute to the current climate of hate.
"As the President has continued to lie and falsely claim that I encouraged people to assault his supporters," she stated, "while also offering a veiled threat that I should 'be careful', even more individuals are leaving [threatening] messages and sending hostile mail to my office," cited by CNN.
Long noted as a supporter of ‘peaceful protest' as a means of cultural and political change, Waters — responding to increasingly polarizing actions and policies enacted by the White House — recently encouraged voters to face down Trump administration officials wherever they might be encountered.
Suggesting that Trump officials, whether seen "in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station," should be publicly called to account for Trump policies, Waters declared: "you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them and you tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere."