Author: glensecor

“Vermin,” as you probably heard, is how Donald Trump recently described…well, I’ll let the man tell you in his own words. Here’s what Trump said in a Veteran’s Day address in New Hampshire and later posted on social media: 

Today, especially, in honor of our great veterans on Veterans Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the 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. They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American Dream.”

There’s so much wrong with these remarks, but let’s focus on the word that caused all the fuhrer, I mean, furor. Hitler, as we now all know, also used the v-word, such as when he asked (in a riff on our entitlement as humans to be cruel to one another…how apropos), whether he should “not also have the right to eliminate millions of an inferior race that multiplies like vermin?”

Trump’s use of such a clearly Hitlerian phrase was met with immediate blowback. If you just parachuted into America after an 8-year absence, with no idea of what we’ve become in the interim, you might expect the candidate to apologize for anything that could be even remotely tied to Hitler.

Instead, on November 13, two days after Veteran’s Day, the Trump campaign said this about those drawing any parallel between Trump’s use of “vermin” and Hitler’s:

“Those who try to make that 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.”

Right.

Keep in mind that the “vermin” remark was preceded a few weeks earlier by a declaration from Trump that undocumented immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country. Again, if that sounds familiar, it is. It’s a phrase Hitler applied to the Jews. And these statements are on top of his many past expressions of admiration for authoritarians and their authoritarian systems, as well as the undemocratic, authoritarian plans he’s sharing for a second term, should he seize, I mean win, one.

Honestly, I wish my views on Trump were deranged. I wish my sense of revulsion toward the man (and what he says, and what he stands for) was irrational. I wish it was insane of me to believe him when he tells me he’s an authoritarian. But it isn’t.

Trump followed up his Veteran’s Day remarks with a Thanksgiving rant for the ages:

“Happy Thanksgiving to ALL, including the Racist & Incompetent Attorney General of New York State, Letitia ‘Peekaboo’ James, who has let Murder & Violent Crime FLOURISH, & Businesses FLEE; the Radical Left Trump Hating Judge, a ‘Psycho,’ Arthur Engoron, who Criminally Defrauded the State of New York, & ME, by purposely Valuing my Assets at a ‘tiny’ Fraction of what they are really worth in order to convict me of Fraud before even a Trial, or seeing any PROOF, & used his Politically Biased & Corrupt Campaign Finance Violator, Chief Clerk Alison Greenfield, to sit by his side on the ‘Bench’ & tell him what to do; & Crooked Joe Biden, who has WEAPONIZED his Department of Injustice against his Political Opponent, & allowed our Country to go to HELL; & all of the other Radical Left Lunatics, Communists, Fascists, Marxists, Democrats, & RINOS, who are seriously looking to DESTROY OUR COUNTRY.”

Happy Thanksgiving, indeed.

Back in March, Jim Geraghty had a piece in the National Review on the dangers of demagogues. In it, he wrote that:

Trump’s rhetoric has always had demagogic elements, but now his speeches and Truth Social feed are just a constant rant…And Trump is now telling us, over and over again, that our nation is being “killed,” we are “failing,” and we are in “steep decline”:

“WE JUST CAN’T ALLOW THIS ANYMORE. THEY’RE KILLING OUR NATION AS WE SIT BACK & WATCH. WE MUST SAVE AMERICA! PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST!!!”

Geraghty goes on to note that, “Just as he did after the events of January 6, 2021, Trump will insist he only meant peaceful protest. But we know not everyone who listens to Trump hears or grasps any instruction to be peaceful.” 

There were no such instructions to be peaceful on January 6th or since. Instead, Trump’s rhetoric has only taken on new dimensions of menace and violence. We’re past the point of his language having “demagogic elements” – he’s gone full demagogue. He’s not just saying the quiet part aloud, he’s screaming it in all caps. And that’s what those listening to him will hear.