You could say Donald Trump gaffes used to make us laugh. His obsession, for example, with proving he’s more qualified than Joe Biden (which keeps bumping up against his inability to tell the current president from former President Obama), is kind of funny. Ditto his claims of endorsement from a fictional serial killer and his ignorance of world geography or history.
But as Ali Velshi points out, Trump’s recent speeches have clearly and definitively dropped language specific to White nationalists and echo fascists and genocidal movements from the darkest episodes of history.
“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.” — Donald Trump, Veterans Day 2023 address in Claremont, N.H.
This dehumanizing vocabulary comes straight from the Nazi playbook, referencing Hitler’s views on inferior races and, in particular, the Jewish people. In an October interview with far-right news site The National Pulse, Trump referenced immigrants “poisoning the blood of our country.” These are not dog whistles: These are affirmative shouts of racism and hatred. We need to pay attention to the lessons of history and take his rhetoric seriously for the danger that it is.
LISTEN: ALI VELSHI TALKS ABOUT TRUMP’S RHETORIC
WATCH: ALI ON TRUMP’S TALK, INCLUDING THE WORD “VERMIN”
