Donald Trump went to New Hampshire on Saturday, testing his anti-immigrant agenda and increasingly violent rhetoric on social media, in interviews, and at campaign events. He used a term that appears in the pages of My Struggle and in white supremacist manifestos.
“They are poisoning the blood of the nation.” They acted in that manner, the previous president declared. All around the world, they contaminate prisons and mental health facilities. not limited to South America. not simply the three or four nations that come to mind. However, people are migrating to our nation from all over the world, including Asia and Africa.
After leaving New Hampshire, he took to his Truth Social account with an all-caps post to declare that “illegal immigration is poisoning the blood of our nation.”
Again without evidence because no one was there to back up his controversial states, he claimed that “they come from prisons, from mental institutions” and to the United States.
The front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination has increased his volatility, used dehumanizing language, and accepted the designation of “Day One dictator,” all the while his supporters and campaign laugh away criticism and political opponents’ concerns about his use of violent language.
Following Trump’s New Hampshire event, the campaign of President Joe Biden claimed that his anticipated opponent in 2024 was “channeling his role models” and “parroting Adolf Hitler.”
Spokesperson Ammar Moussa claimed that Trump “praised Kim Jong Un and cited Vladimir Putin while running for president with a promise to rule as a dictator and threaten American democracy.”
“He is betting that he can win this election by scaring and dividing this country,” he added. “He’s wrong. In 2020, Americans chose President Biden’s vision of hope and unity over Trump’s vision of fear and division – and they will do the same next November.”
On December 16, supporters of Donald Trump in New Hampshire held up a picture of him facing criminal charges in Atlanta for allegedly plotting to rig the 2020 election results. (EPA)The comments were roundly condemned as a warning of his increasingly violent and authoritarian rhetoric echoing My fight against “blood contamination” and “the poison that has invaded the national body” from an “influx of foreign blood.”
During a violent protest in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, neofascist groups screamed “blood and soil,” which fed the conspiracy theory known as the “great replacement,” which was the inspiration behind white supremacist organizations, racial mass killings, and media criticism. far right.
“Yes, this is fascist rhetoric,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiatum, a scholar of authoritarianism and author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present.
The foundation of the Nazi state was their terror of the ‘blood contamination’ of their superior race and civilization. She stated on Sunday that “Italian fascists discussed the danger of non-white immigrants coming to destroy white civilization.” “Trump is echoing, extending, and referencing fascist rhetoric.
If Trump wins back the presidency, he and his backers plan to substantially alter US immigration laws, carrying out his strict objectives that the next president has tried to reverse.
He promised to revive a broader ban on immigration from Muslim-majority countries that he implemented in his first term. He would also reimpose an entry ban at the U.S.-Mexico border for people seeking asylum; arrest undocumented people living in the US and detaining them in camps before being expelled; prohibit granting citizenship to children born in the U.S. to non-citizen parents; and end the legal status of thousands of people in the US for humanitarian reasons, among other proposed policies.
He also suggested “ideologically screening” immigrants in New Hampshire.
Ben-Ghiat claimed that his more divisive and quickly spreading anti-immigrant rhetoric is gearing up his followers for the “retribution” he had threatened.
“Americans will see immigrants arrested and mistreated, with violence, so he is trying to dehumanize this group now, over and over again, to get Americans used to the idea that they should be persecuted so that they will not resist when the repression comes. later,” she said.
She continued, “We should consider not just the substance of what he is saying, but also the motivation behind it. “Remember the target audience and the terrifying goal each time you hear this.”
In 2020 Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump, Jennifer Mercieca, a professor at Texas A&M University and historian of American political rhetoric, issued a warning, stating that Trump “sees American democracy as a sham and wants to convince his followers to see things that way too.”
“Just like Trump, Putin despises Western values like democracy and the rule of law,” the source told The Washington Post.
One of Trump’s competitors for the Republican nomination, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, referred to the president’s most recent comments as a “dog whistle” to his followers.
“What he’s doing is dog-whistling at Americans who feel stressed and pressured by the economy. [and] blaming people from areas that don’t look like us,” he told CNN on Sunday.
But Trump’s campaign and allies largely rejected any criticism of his remarks and refused to forcefully condemn his degrading statements.
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s top allies in the U.S. Senate, has repeatedly dismissed concerns about Trump’s dehumanizing language.
Asked on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday about Trump’s rhetoric and criticism of Biden’s campaign, Graham turned to the U.S.-Mexico border.
“For the Biden administration, you’re talking about Donald Trump’s language when he stood on the sidelines and allowed the country to be invaded,” he said.
Asked if he feels “comfortable” with Trump using those words, Graham said: “We’re talking about language. I could [sic] care less what language people use as long as we get it right.”
Republican U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales appeared to blame Trump’s rhetoric for what he called an “open border crisis.”
Asked on CBS Confront the Nation whether he endorsed the former president’s statements, he deflected, saying “I think immigrants are the lifeblood of our country.”
“What this open border crisis has done is put legal immigrants at the back of the line and encouraged illegal immigration, and created this rhetoric and this anger,” he said.
Congressional Republicans’ defense of Trump’s anti-immigration statements comes as the Biden administration negotiates U.S.-Mexico border policies to get Republican lawmakers to support expanding aid to Ukraine and Israel.
The president’s willingness to support “meaningful commitments” on immigration policy – after sending a bill to Congress on his first day in office promising to “restore humanity and American values to our immigration system” – marks a seismic shift in the White House and Democratic administrations. platforms that will reach 2024 on terms that will be dominated by Republicans, with Trump likely to lead them.
Elliot Brooks