By now many perhaps have heard about candidate Trump’s infamous “vermin” speech from last weekend. It was one of those clarifying moments that every American citizen needs to know about, one of those moments that explicitly defines the situation the country faces and finds itself in.
The Republican Party’s front-runner for president spoke at a Veterans Day speech in New Hampshire and in front of the microphone intentionally declared that if he became president he would “root out” his opponents – the left – calling them “vermin”, that they’re destroying America and represent the most dangerous and grave threat facing the country. It was not a spontaneous expression or off-the-cuff; it was deliberate and was repeated on his social media. Trump said:
“We will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie, and steal, and cheat on elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and to destroy the American Dream. The real threat is not from the radical right. It’s from the radical left. And it’s growing every day. The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave, than the threat from within.”
Immediately, there were reactions of disgust from across most of the political spectrum — citing comparisons between Trump’s words and those of both Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, that they echoed the repulsive authoritarian rhetoric of the dictators who described their opponents and dehumanized Jews with the term “vermin.” There were condemnations from politicians and the editorial boards of major newspapers.
The dark irony of the moment was that Trump spoke at an event honoring America’s veterans — many of whom gave their lives fighting those very same dictators.
The following Monday morning, Trump’s campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, rejected comparisons between Trump and those dictators, and defended the statement by denying Trump used authoritarian language — by using authoritarian language — only making things worse. In direct response to claims that he was echoing Hitler, Cheung said:
“[T]hose who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes grasping for anything because they are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome and their entire existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.”
It was clear. The Trump campaign was doubling down. For those critics who condemned Trump for pledging to “root out” the “vermin” and making comparisons to Hitler will themselves be “crushed” out of existence – which, of course, is what Hitler did to his opponents.
Never mind that by calling his opponents “vermin” and promising to “root out” this internal threat, Trump’s language parrots the explicit and repulsive antisemitic themes used by both Hitler and Mussolini, that the Nazis called Jews the “vermin of mankind.” Never mind that Trump is not being subtle and is not disguising his intent and violent threats.
Never mind that this is far from the first time that Trump has used terminology lifted directly from Hitler’s speeches and writings, from the playbooks of dictators. In October, Trump said that undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood of the country,” a phrase that echoes Adolf Hitler’s statement in Mein Kampf in which he warns that contamination from other races was killing Germany through “blood poisoning.” Never mind that he publicly proclaims his admiration for the “very tough strong guy” Viktor Orbán of Hungary and other iron-handed leaders.
Yet, many of the disgusted politician statements and editorials in reaction to Trump’s pledge missed the substantial implication he was making or shied away from carrying the logic of the vermin speech to its deeper intent and conclusion. By promising violence to root out his opponents, Trump was threatening civil strife with a vengeance.
Trump’s words belie his master plan. His acolytes are already crafting the plans and recruiting the loyal personnel to carry them out. We know he’ll use the Justice Department to go after his political and economic enemies, that he’ll purge the government and install those loyalists, that he’ll consolidate power in the presidency, will pardon the January 6 insurrectionists, and will brutally crack down on immigrants with massive arrests and the erection of mass concentration camps. And he’s pledged to enact the Insurrection Act his first day in office and unleash the American military to corral that unruly opposition and use those camps for his opponents.
So, violence, arrests, camps, the use of the military, the use of state power. What this actually means is war — Trump is threatening a new civil war. A second civil war. That’s what will happen when Trump tries to arrest and throw into prison his former generals, lawyers, prosecutors, other civil servants — and all the Democratic Party leaders and pols, all the media talking heads that were critical.
Numerically, most Americans oppose Trump and would find a new Hitler grossly repugnant and unacceptable. Most Americans, especially the young, will not take any of it laying down — even while obviously as a whole, we’re split on this wannabe dictator.
But we’ve had too much freedom and liberty over these last couple of centuries. There’s too much a history of civil disobedience across our land to make it easy for Trump and his warriors to lock up us all up, the nation’s citizens.
We have too much of a libertarian and anarchistic free spirit to just go quietly into Donald’s dungeons. And in the end, if this scenario plays out as the crystalizing moment from last weekend’s “vermin” speech shows, the country’s reaction will create 10,000 Kent State Massacres and make the original one look like a Sunday picnic.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Hoo boy, this next election is going to be a doozy. Trump versus our own little Hitler, Gavin Newsom.
At the very least the election will bring out lots and lots of voters, which is a good thing.
“Trump versus our own little Hitler, Gavin Newsom.”
Is that a real opinion?
Reductio ad Hitlerum.
I just did a tit for tat to show how silly it is comparing anybody to genocidal maniac, unless of course they are a genocidal maniac.
But I understand, putting Trump in a Nazi uniform appeals to people who have a high level of anxiety. Buying into a structured philosophy of hating a political figure or party tends to decrease that anxiety. Hey, it’s human nature.
Does seeing Trump in a Nazi uniform upsetting?
You put Trump in a Nazi uniform for a reaction and you got what you wanted! It livened up a slow news day.
Trump is a nut, not a Nazi. That being said I find it hilarious that Trump elicits so much anxiety in people.
I try and overlook elected official’s words and just stick with their deeds. Hell, I paid $2.01 a gallon for diesel, mortgage interest rates were low, and the country didn’t get into any wars during Trump’s term.
Anyway, I find it easier on my mental state to focus on my family, my neighbors and what’s going on in OB. That’s it. Oh ya, and I read The Rag to find out what’s going on. I especially like articles on local stuff!
Okay, keep reading. But we’re having a difficult time finding local writers to help us with the local stuff.
FrankF, can you give an example of Newsom being like Hitler? Of coarse he is a politician but at least he is smart and can talk in complete sentences. He also hasn’t called for people with guns to overthrow an election. I will totally vote for him when he runs.
Is anyone else so tired of people’s opinions? What happened to reading about events and not total opinion piece.
Nobody should be reading my opinion when I say that Trump is a retarded moron; it’s because we don’t use the word retarded anymore when referring to someone in a derogatory manner; we use “developmentally disabled.” Let me
very clear here: Trump is a fucking developmentally disabled retarded moron.
I wrote that entire post without using the word “fascist.”
Then allow me: in his opening statement at the Nuremberg Trials, Justice Robert H. Jackson said, “What makes this inquest significant is that these prisoners represent sinister influences that will lurk in the world long after their bodies have returned to dust. We will show them to be living symbols of racial hatreds, of terrorism and violence, and of the arrogance and cruelty of power. They are symbols of fierce nationalisms and of militarism, of intrigue and war-making which have embroiled Europe generation after generation, crushing its manhood, destroying its homes, and impoverishing its life…. Civilization can afford no compromise with the social forces which would gain renewed strength if we deal ambiguously or indecisively with the men in whom those forces now precariously survive.” https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/robert-jackson-opening-statement-nuremberg
That the descendants of those who gave their lives to defeat fascism are using the right to expressing free will that they won for them to willingly embrace fascism is as inexplicable as it is despicable.
Hitler volunteered and rose to corporal in WWI, and was awarded for bravery. Drumpf is a five-time, bone-spur Der Ferral.
I’m not sure what goes on in that guy’s head, but I am pretty sure it sounds like someone back in 1964 tossing ten pair of Converse All Stars into the dryer then adding a roll of quarters for the proper mental punctuation.
And then it tries to talk.
This is relevant, popped up today:
https://hartmannreport.com/p/saturday-report-111823-crazy-alert
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sealintheSelkirks
Frank F:
So yeah Trump isn’t Hitler, Adolf was more intelligent (but just as crazy), but he sure uses a lot of the same rhetoric now doesn’t he? Besides definitely showing quite a bit of a despotic dictator/authoritarian behavior patterns both personally and business/political while wishing/threatening violent behavior on people he doesn’t like in what his not-so-subtle speeches that suggest to his followers ‘needs to be done’ to any who oppose him…but I’m sure you might have noticed he does that quite often?
And you called him a nut. But it sounds like you’ll still vote for him?
Your quote: “I try and overlook elected official’s words and just stick with their deeds.” So haven’t you connected the deeds being promoted by Trump in his speeches with actions already taken? Are you actually paying any attention to what his regime pushed? And as for the didn’t start a war part, he at least did do a little bombing, at least to Syria, like all the other rightwinger neoliberal conservatives that have been presidents since Reagan R or D.
And do you have a reason for why nearly all of the mass shooters of the last bunch of years have been conservative rightwingers, Republicans or MAGA GOPers, and/or religious believers?
If some ‘nut’ with a huge following of ‘poorly educated’ but an armed & angry crowd were standing on the sidewalk in front of YOUR house screaming the same stuff about you and your family as Trump and his MAGA subjects do, sure you’d just pay it no nevermind, eh? Well bless your heart!
This below has been a challenge of the writer Thom Hartmann’s site for years. Can you come up with anything that would let me win the prize for answering?
“For almost all of the 20 years I’ve been doing my radio/TV show I’ve run a contest. I’ll give an autographed book to anybody who can come up with even one single piece of major legislation since Reagan that was written by Republicans, passed the House and Senate with a majority of Republicans, and was signed into law by a Republican president that helped average Americans more than billionaires or monopolistic giant corporations. While a few folks have identified small efforts around the edges (the no-call list, for example), nobody has found a single “big” thing the GOP has done for all Americans in the past 40 years.”
So Frank F, can you help me win that book?
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As for the Cali Gov being a Fascist, in reality the entire political process of the United States is, and has been, for a very long time. The defining definition is when business/corporations and State Power intertwine, and since all political campaigns are funded by corporations and the wealthy it could rather easily be argued that we really only have a 1-party State because the wants of the wealthy elite owners take precedent over ‘voting by the masses’ through their buying of politicians that do whatever they tell them to do. Look what the GOP legislature in Ohio is trying at the moment, nullification of the recent election because they didn’t like the result of right to abortion and cannabis legalization. Quite a totalitarian move, wouldn’t you say? And doesn’t it sound so familiar…like Jan 6 2021?
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Please remember Trump gave 1 and 1/2 TRILLION dollars away to the obscenely wealthy in tax cuts soon as he got into office, and screwed the rest of us. Exactly what one would expect of a useless bloated right-wing frat boy that inherited everything he has. He’s never been one of the ‘working stiffs’ that slobber on his every word. Hell, I bet he’s never done his own laundry, scrubbed a toilet, or…anything else you can think of that the rest of us have to do. He doesn’t even drive having always been chauffeured since childhood. He has nothing in common experience with any of the suckers that votes for him. Absolutely nothing.
But I do agree that he “I love the poorly educated, we’re the smartest people…” Direct quote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpdt7omPoa0
But he went to the Wharton School of Business, an elite Ivy League College his daddy paid $2 million to get him into. Of course his top professor called him the dumbest student he ever had so I guess he IS poorly educated after all.
Of course he wouldn’t stop to piss on any of the others if they were on fire but he sure loves being able to con the crap out of them and have them ask for more. A narcissistic con man has to just love that sort of thing! Whoo-hoo!
According to his niece the Psychiatrist, it will get far worse if he gets back in power. You might want to look up Mary Trump’s youtube interviews to get a better handle on her Uncle’s mindset. Maybe you will learn something.
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And, just for your information, I listen to what politicians spew and watch what they actually do because it can easily directly impact my life, friends lives, my stepkids lives, their children’s lives, etc. But using cost of diesel gas and mortgage interests rates comparisons that PRESIDENTS HAVE NO AUTHORITY OVER is ridiculous. Corporate oil companies set the price not freaking presidents, and rich people that own all the banks set the second (remember the Federal Reserve is a private bank not government).
When the leader of the Party slobbers that any opponents are all vermin (and what do you do with vermin?), I tend to pay attention. I hear in the back of my mind both my grandpa’s voices about they said about fighting the Fascists in WWII… There are precedents in real life about that.
Were Mussolini or Pinochet kidding? Were their followers?
So in the last couple of week a mile or two up the hill from me somebody at one of the GOP homes, many flying traitorous Confederate flags next to US flags without any sense of irony whatsoever always with Trump flags, too, was test-firing a fully automatic machine gun. Can’t miss the sound of that. I have armed Fascists right up the hill from me. Gee, I wonder why they’d be doing that? Oh wait, they have vermin in these mountains, right?
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Here’s a latest one for your mind to absorb from Thom Hartmann:
Why Has America Tolerated Six Illegitimate GOP Presidents?
https://hartmannreport.com/p/four-presidents
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sealintheSelkirks