“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 said this past November, in a campaign speech that was ostensibly honoring Veterans Day. “The real threat is not from the radical right; the real threat is from the radical left … The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within.”
What immediately leaps out here is the word vermin, with its echoes of Hitler and Mussolini. But Trump’s inflammatory language can overshadow and distract from the substance of what he’s saying—in this case, appearing to promise a purge or repression of those who disagree with him politically.
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Trump himself has changed, too—the old Trump seemed to be running for office partly for fun and partly in service of his signature views, such as opposition to immigration and support for protectionism. Today’s Trump is different. His fury over his 2020 election defeat, the legal cases against him, and a desire for revenge against political opponents have come to eclipse everything else.
Even if he wasn’t intending to, he’s basically psychologically digging himself into insurrection and the US into following the footsteps of dictatorship.
That Biden is the only other choice, and is basically trying to rule as if we were back in the 20th century, ignoring any counter to the GQP stuffing the Supreme Court with cronies, ignoring the elephant in the room of Republicans turning into the GQP and abusing gerrymandering without allowing the government to step in while also allowing the government to step in in those states where Trump is being held responsible for his insurrection attempt so that he can still run as candidate, this is what will doom the US.