Trump's DC Speech Rhetoric is a Fascist's Clarion Call
In his return to DC since his failed coup, Trump's speech wasn't just a speech. It was a laying down of the gauntlet for aspiring autocrats hoping to fill his shoes.
Donald Trump’s return to the Washington, DC on July 26 got a lot of press.
The twice-impeached, twice-popular-vote-losing former president had not set foot in the nation’s capitol since he nearly pulled off a coup to overthrow the government on January 6, 2021.
Maybe it’s because we’ve become somewhat inured to Trump’s extreme rhetoric, or for that matter the rhetoric dominating the current republican party since Trump’s ascendancy, but “the former guy” proposed some very chilling — and familiar — autocratic ideas in his speech at the “America First Policy Institute” summit on July 26.
First, he called for concentration camps.
Yes, concentration camps, this time for the homeless, in addition to the ones he established for migrants at the Southern border with Mexico.
Combining the human rights violations we committed against Native Americans in the 18th and 19th centuries and Japanese Americans during World War Two, Trump asserted the government should “remove” thousands of homeless Americans and relocate them to tents on “large parcels of inexpensive land in the outer reaches of the cities” with “permanent bathrooms” and “medical professionals.”
Then, channeling his inner former Phillipine president Roderigo Duterte, Trump suggested executing drug dealers.
He praised China’s undemocratic policies toward suspected criminals.
In addition to favoring a return to the racist “stop-and-frisk policies in cities,” Trump insisted that if he were still in office, he would override governors and mayors, and deploy the national guard to high-crime neighborhoods.
Echoing shades of his 2017 inaugural speech in which he intoned about a dystopic nation ravaged by “American carnage,” Trump claimed:
“The dangerously deranged roam our streets with impunity. We are living in such a different country for one primary reason: There is no longer respect for the law and there certainly is no order. Our country is now a cesspool of crime.”
We might be inclined to laugh and dismiss this as mere bluster, the tormented rantings of a delusional, ill-qualified, washed-up old wanna-be despot.
But we do so at our own peril.
Should Trump or anyone aspiring to be like him ever again gain the levers of power, this is part of the road map toward autocracy we can expect.
If Democrats do not confront this head-on with facts, statistics, and truly progressive policies that don’t resemble the republicans’ — and work like hell to message them for low-information voters — they are sure to lose the midterms.
Ever notice how many times republicans cite “out-of-control crime rates” in their impassioned jeremiads against Democrats?
It’s more than rhetoric.
When Democrats are in power, republican lawmakers, candidates, and right-wing hate media dust off the tried-and-true greatest hit of “Democrats are coming for your guns,” despite the fact it has never happened nor ever will.
As a result, gun sales spike.
Naturally, then, since “Democrats are coming for your guns,” crime rates must skyrocket.
And, of course, “it’s all Democrats’ fault!”
Well, not really.
Eight of the 10 states with the highest per-capita murder rates voted for Donald Trump.
Recent data from the centrist think tank Third Way reveals republican-led states report significantly higher homicide rates; some of the highest murder rates exist in cities with republican mayors.
But republican politicians and propagandists have convinced enormous swaths of voters of the lie that they are not safe so long as Democrats are in power.
It’s worked before, and it may be working again.
If the Democratic party does not confront republican lies about crime, it may suffer the same fate it did in the 1970s and 80s, when both Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan successfully scared the daylights out of voters enough to get themselves two terms in the White House.
According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll, the majority of Americans from both sides of the political spectrum regard crime a serious problem. About one third of the poll’s respondents said crime is “ extremely serious,” the highest percentage in two decades.
It’s possible republicans want higher crime rates so the public buying into their “tough on crime” facade will have no problem when we trade democracy for fascism.
It’s simple: suffuse the populace with guns, crime, hate groups, domestic terrorism, political violence, and general distrust of democracy, and a strongman authoritarian promising “I alone can fix it” is a welcomed change from a messy system predicated on consensus and compromise.
This is precisely what Florida governor (and possible 2024 GOP presidential nominee) Ron DeSantis represents.
Pay attention to the language he uses in a recent message:
“Our country is currently facing a great threat…This enemy is the radical vigilante woke mob that will steamroll anything and anyone in their way. Their blatant attacks on the American way of life are clear and intensifying: stifling dissent, public shaming, rampant violence, and a perverted version of history…A group that will, literally, tear down monuments and buildings but-perhaps in an even more sinister way-tear down the American spirit itself. They go after the family unit, parental rights, traditional moral values, the church, and fact-based education…Over the past few years, we’ve watched horrified as this group has attempted to brainwash our children into thinking we live in an evil, racist, irredeemable country.”
Does that sound like a democratically inclined leader interested in respecting political differences?
Every one of his premises is wrong.
But that’s doesn’t matter to the audience for whom they are intended.
It’s inciteful, bellicose rhetoric from a fascist intent on angering, frightening, and riling up a base convinced Democrats are spawns of Satan that only good “patriotic Christians” can defeat.
And it’s animating the republican party--the so-called the “party of Lincoln”.
The party in which not even Richard Nixon nor Ronald Reagan — two presidents completely comfortable with exploiting fear of crime — would be welcomed today.
The party exploiting fear and faux outrage to inflame people’s primal terror.
That’s what fascists do.
That’s what Trump did in 2015 when he announced his intent to run for the White House despite many believing it was just empty campaign bluster.
That’s what he did when in the White House that sucked so many into the cult currently subsuming the republican party.
Whether it’s Trump, DeSantis, Josh Hawley, Rick Scott, Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, or Mike Pence, every one of them is going to have to pander to the “MAGA” base.
No aspiring republican presidential nominee would risk alienating it now that Trump has lowered the bar, whether they like it or not.
That means trying to out-fascist the other guy.
It’s a vision that should concern all of us.
We saw where it almost got us the first time.
The next time we may not be so fortunate.