October 13, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson
By: Heather Cox Richardson
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Heather Cox RichardsonOct 14, 20243,221Share this postCopy linkFacebookEmailNoteOther578Share
"He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he's a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country…a fascist to the core."
This is how former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, the nation's highest-ranking military officer and the primary military advisor to the president, the secretary of defense, and the National Security Council, described former president Donald Trump to veteran journalist Bob Woodward. Trump appointed Milley to that position.
Since he announced his presidential candidacy in June 2015 by calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals, Trump has trafficked in racist anti-immigrant stories. But since the September 10 presidential debate when he drew ridicule for his outburst regurgitating the lie that legal Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating their white neighbors' pets, Trump has used increasingly fascist rhetoric. By this weekend, he had fully embraced the idea that the United States is being overrun by Black and Brown criminals and that they, along with their Democratic accomplices, must be rounded up, deported, or executed, with the help of the military.
Myah Ward of Politico noted on October 12 that Trump's speeches have escalated to the point that he now promises that he alone can save the country from those people he calls "animals," "stone cold killers," the "worst people," and the "enemy from within." He falsely claims Vice President Kamala Harris "has imported an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the third world…from prisons and jails and insane asylums and mental institutions, and she has had them resettled beautifully into your community to prey upon innocent American citizens."
Trump's behavior is Authoritarianism 101. In a 1951 book called The True Believer , political philosopher Eric Hoffer noted that demagogues appeal to a disaffected population whose members feel they have lost the power they previously held, that they have been displaced either religiously, economically, culturally, or politically. Such people are willing to follow a leader who promises to return them to their former positions of prominence and thus to make the nation great again.
But to cement their loyalty, the leader has to give them someone to hate. Who that is doesn't really matter: the group simply has to be blamed for all the troubles the leader's supporters are suffering. Trump has kept his base firmly behind him by demonizing immigrants, the media, and, increasingly, Democrats, deflecting his own shortcomings by blaming these groups for undermining him.
According to Hoffer, there's a psychological trick to the way this rhetoric works that makes loyalty to such a leader get stronger as that leader's behavior deteriorates. People who sign on to the idea that they are standing with their leader against an enemy begin to attack their opponents, and in order to justify their attacks, they have to convince themselves that that enemy is not good-intentioned, as they are, but evil. And the worse they behave, the more they have to believe their enemies deserve to be treated badly.
According to Hoffer, so long as they are unified against an enemy, true believers will support their leader no matter how outrageous his behavior gets. Indeed, their loyalty will only grow stronger as his behavior becomes more and more extreme. Turning against him would force them to own their own part in his attacks on those former enemies they would now have to recognize as ordinary human beings like themselves.
At a MAGA rally in Aurora, Colorado, on October 11, Trump added to this formula his determination to use the federal government to attack those he calls enemies. Standing on a stage with a backdrop that read, "DEPORT ILLEGALS NOW" and "END MIGRANT CRIME," he insisted that the city had been taken over by Venezuelan gangs and proposed a federal program he called "Operation Aurora" to remove those immigrants he insists are members of "savage gangs." When Trump said, "We have to live with these animals, but we won't live with them for long," a person in the crowd shouted: "Kill them!"
Officials in Aurora emphatically deny Trump's claim that the city is a "war zone." Republican mayor Mike Coffman said that Aurora is "not a city overrun by Venezuelan gangs" and that such statements are "grossly exaggerated." While there have been incidents, they "were limited to several apartment complexes in this city of more than 400,000 residents." The chief of the Aurora police agreed that the city is "not by any means overtaken by Venezuelan gangs."
In Aurora, Trump also promised to "invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798." As legal analyst Asha Rangappa explains, the Alien Enemies Act authorizes the government to round up, detain, and deport foreign nationals of a country with which the U.S. is at war. But it is virtually certain Trump didn't come up with the idea to use that law on his own, raising the question of who really will be in charge of policy in a second Trump administration.
Trump aide Stephen Miller seems the likely candidate to run immigration policy. He has promised to begin a project of "denaturalization," that is, stripping naturalized citizens of their citizenship. He, too, spoke at Aurora, leading the audience in booing photos that were allegedly of migrant criminals.
Before Miller spoke, a host from Right Side Broadcasting used the dehumanizing language associated with genocide, saying of migrants: "These people, they are so evil. They are not your run-of-the-mill criminal. They are people that are Satanic. They are involved in human sacrifice. They are raping men, women, and children—especially underaged children." Trump added the old trope of a population carrying disease, saying that immigrants are "very very very sick with highly contagious disease, and they're let into our country to infect our country."
Trump promised the audience in Aurora that he would "liberate Colorado. I will give you back your freedom and your life."
On Saturday, October 12, Trump held a rally in Coachella, California, where temperatures near 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) sparked heat-related illnesses in his audience as he spoke for about 80 minutes in the apocalyptic vein he has adopted lately. After the rally, shuttle buses failed to arrive to take attendees back to their cars, leaving them stranded.
And on Sunday, October 13, Trump made the full leap to authoritarianism, calling for using the federal government not only against immigrants, but also against his political opponents. After weeks of complaining about the "enemy within," Trump suggested that those who oppose him in the 2024 election are the nation's most serious problem.
He told Fox News Channel host Maria Bartiromo that even more troubling for the forthcoming election than immigrants "is the enemy from within…we have some very bad people, we have some sick people, radical left lunatics…. And it should be easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military."
Trump's campaign seems to be deliberately pushing the comparisons to historic American fascism by announcing that Trump will hold a rally at New York City's Madison Square Garden on October 27, an echo of a February 1939 rally held there by American Nazis in honor of President George Washington's birthday. More than 20,000 people showed up for the "true Americanism" event, held on a stage that featured a huge portrait of Washington in his Continental Army uniform flanked by swastikas.
Trump's full-throated embrace of Nazi "race science" and fascism is deadly dangerous, but there is something notable about Trump's recent rallies that undermines his claims that he is winning the 2024 election. Trump is not holding these rallies in the swing states he needs to win but rather is holding them in states—Colorado, California, New York—that he is almost certain to lose by a lot.
Longtime Republican operative Matthew Bartlett told Matt Dixon and Allan Smith of NBC News: "This does not seem like a campaign putting their candidate in critical vote-rich or swing vote locations—it seems more like a candidate who wants his campaign to put on rallies for optics and vibes."
Trump seems eager to demonstrate that he is a strongman, a dominant candidate, when in fact he has refused another debate with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and backed out of an interview with 60 Minutes . He has refused to release a medical report although his mental acuity is a topic of concern as he rambles through speeches and seems entirely untethered from reality. And as Harris turns out larger numbers for her rallies in swing states than he does, he appears to be turning bloodthirsty in Democratic areas.
Today, Harris told a rally of her own in North Carolina: "[Trump] is not being transparent…. He refuses to release his medical records. I've done it. Every other presidential candidate in the modern era has done it. He is unwilling to do a 60 Minutes interview like every other major party candidate has done for more than half a century. He is unwilling to meet for a second debate…. It makes you wonder, why does his staff want him to hide away?... Are they afraid that people will see that he is too weak and unstable to lead America? Is that what's going on?"
"For these reasons and so many more," she said, "it is time to turn the page."
—
Notes:
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/12/trump-racist-rhetoric-immigrants-00183537
"22,000 Nazis Hold Rally in Garden," The New York Times , February 21, 1939; Ryan Bort, "When Nazis Took Over Madison Square Garden," Rolling Stone , February 19, 2019.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/10/trump-madison-square-garden-rally-nazi-comparison
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/12/us/politics/trump-rally-coachella-california.html
https://newrepublic.com/post/187115/donald-trump-rally-nazi-bloodthirsty-immigration-threat
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-aurora-colorado-venezuelan-gang-claims/
Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (Harper & Brothers, 1951).
https://www.npr.org/2024/10/11/nx-s1-5147400/donald-trump-aurora-colorado-rally
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-coachella-rally-attendees-were-010925587.html
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And when that doesn't work they will respond with violence.
worst case scenario, I'm hoping for a blanket amnesty for those individuals that counter the violent acts of unamerican domestic terrorists that don't believe in the peaceful transition of power after a free and fair election and choose to follow the demands of a cult leader over their allegiance to our country.
I got my ballot on saturday and put it completed into a drop off ballot box yesterday. I didn't vote for a convicted felon with fascist ideals of authoritarian rule that threaten all of the very basic principles of the US constitution or any of his supporters. I cast my vote out of my respect for the many people that have given their lives to protect those principles for all americans and my family.
Says the king of projection, the actual enemy within.
Rounding up 'leftists' has historically been fascism 101. Hitler and Mussolini both did it, with Hitler going after everything from artists to professors and public intellectuals. You know, the people pointing out how sick and demented fascism was.
I can't believe this is the country I grew up in. Great job, Republicans. Fucking morons.
my source in DC says they'll be ready for maga insurrectionists the next time they try anything ...
I believe that they'll be ready for a failed insurrection Part II, this time.
He's been inciting them for four years now.
I have been getting shouted down whenever I try to say the "f" word: Fascism.
People seem to think that because the Fascists of the middle 20th century were so bad that to call anyone "fascist" is such an over the top accusation as to be bordering on criminal. If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, looks like a duck, it most likely is a duck, so to speak.
Does he really have to start to round people up before the light comes on in peoples heads? Is that point-too-far really what it takes to make the above quote apparent?
Now you have his own words from the Bartiromo interview to toss back to the naysayers.
I think many of his supporters actually want it.
But the first rule of Duck Club is you don't talk about Duck Club...
For those who feel elite because they're 'members' of Duck Club they've been praying for those they have deemed their enemies to get rounded up. They couldn't be more excited at the prospect of the rise of fascism, er, I mean Duckism, in America. They want nothing more than to turn America into their own Duck Dynasty...
As Nancy Pelosi said, and I paraphrase - 'every insane rant is a confession'
artists to professors and public intellectuals
throw in labor leaders and you are talking about communists.
*sigh* Organized labor in a capitalist economy isn't communism, and a person doesn't have to be a radical to support it, or to even be a union leader. But Hitler did go after labor leaders, as well as socialists and communists, flying in the face of the ridiculous trope on the right that he was a leftist.
Is that still being bandied about? Maybe opening a history book is in order.
The United States didn't go full on socialistic or communistic when unions were able to gain strength. I think the unions made America stronger. They helped create a strong middle class. Sadly, the middle class has weakened because of what corporations have done to unions
History book that don't paint all white people as saviors and heroes are being banned under MAGA Populist platform. You know, in case they make some white kids feel bad.
If taught in the context of the history of mankind and conquest, white kids shouldn’t feel bad. Now as we get closer to current history and failed assimilation attempts, cheating native Americans out of treaties and poor services on reservations, they should feel bad about so much power centralized in the government.
But it was fine when they made black kids feel bad
Sure, its not generational racism against native Americans, its centralized government that is the problem.
Our government is full of structural racists, who do you think is making the racist decisions?
Who created structural racism? Racists. To blame the system instead of individuals is disingenuous.
No, that's wrong too. Remember, slavery gave people jobs and a place to live.
Thank you for the correction
The system is people to my friend, the system is people too.
That was a very silly comment, was it Florida policy makers?
Sigh..
Communists threw labor leaders in jail and outlawed unions too.
Right. People who favor the government discriminating on the basis of race are racists. Glad we can agree on something.
like Jim Jones
those who used leftists and twisted their message much like some on NT do
Yes, yes it was.
...was it Florida policy makers?
I've seen several similar quotes from MAGA Populists over the last few years.
What happened in the Soviet Union wasn't communism either. And yes, I know everyone calls it that, but what they ended up with was a totalitarian dictatorship often referred to as Marxism-Leninism, or more accurately: Stalinism. Eventually, some of them would admit that they hadn't actually achieved communism, claiming they were still in a dictatorship of the proletariat, which Marx had postulated would be the first phase of a communist revolution. But it wasn't really that either. The proletariat did not rule themselves or the means of production, and had even less freedom than in capitalism.
Anyone who's ever read Marx should know that the idea wasn't to replace capitalism with an even smaller, more powerful, more oppressive group of economic masters, headed up by an all-powerful strong man. That's more like the opposite of communism, even worse than capitalism, and inspired books like Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm, and Trotsky's The Revolution Betrayed (which earned him an ice pick to the head of course, courtesy of Stalin).
But all of that is a different topic.
Of course-- everyone is a Communist!
/sarc
How did the Greeks and the Romans lose their Republics to Tyrants and dictators? It was the will of the populas! How did the German Republic devolve unto Fascism? The Germans elected the Fascists! It is not like history is not replete with great Republics frittered away...
Lol. This list, created by a businessman/novelist to sell his book claiming George Bush was a fascist about to take over the republic was popularized by rense.com a heaven for conspiracy theorists and anti-semites. Interesting source and funny how the same ignorant scaremonger just keeps getting recycled.
Moved this post to reply to Dig's comment.
Stalin and Hitler.
He is the most dangerous person ever
That is so stupid, it should require an immediate review of our armed forces promotional practices to how someone so ignorant could possibly rise to that level of power.
Open a history book, once.
God. The irony.
Trump was President for four years. How many Americans did he round up for their political views? How many wars did he start?
The idea that he's "the most dangerous man ever" could only be written by someone who thinks the world began last week.
IF you want to go down on the "Trump is the most dangerous man ever" ship, go ahead. People should advertise the incredibly stupid things they believe so they can be ignored. For starters, publicly claiming "Trump is more dangerous than Hitler ever was" would be embarrassing for a homeless crank to scream and no doubt cause him to loss face among his fellow street corner crazy people.
But, sure, keep it up.
Thank you for your advertisement!
If Trump doesnt want to be seen as all the things he is accused of, why does he talk and act like he wants to be seen that way?
He is completely unfit for office. Even suggesting that his political opponents should be arrested and put before military tribunals is completely disqualifying regardless of if he would ever do it.
If he says he would let a zombie army loose on the "communists" in some "radical" town , would it be ok because he could never actually do it?
We have more than enough information about this asshole to say with total certainty he should never be in office, anywhere, again.
He has already tried to be an authoritarian when he tried to rig the final outcome of the 2020 election. He doesnt have to have succeeded for the people of the United States to tell him "get the fuck out of here".
That does not make him the most dangerous person in human history.
He was President once. He sat in the oval office, watched TV, bitched about people who criticized him and let the government pretty much run itself. Nobody was rounded up. No wars were started. He followed the Supreme Court when it ruled against him. Elections were carried out and nothing happened when his party lost. Did I miss him dissolve Congress in 2018 when Pelosi won the house? Seems like that would be baby steps for a wanna be dictator.
This constant over the top hyperventilating about fascists, fascists everywhere with Trump, of all people, as their dynamic leader is so discrediting in the eyes of normal people that it goes along way to explain how Harris can lose to him.
Imagine telling a normie whose brain isn't broken that Trump is more dangerous than Hitler. How do you think they react to that, considering they lived through a Trump Presidency?
He was unfit then. Didn't do dick unless it benefitted him and those who benefitted him to become 'president'. Learned nothing. Didn't care to learn anything. Thought he was king with unlimited powers.
Where the fuck does this word 'normie' come from?
During the first go around he was a bumbling fool who hadn't learned the ropes yet, and there were several responsible people around him who managed check some of his worst instincts. Still, he got away with using the government to harass people like Comey and McCabe, and he learned that targeted, dog whistle rhetoric would inspire supporters to harass many more for him, like various judges and state officials.
A second term will be another story entirely. He knows the ropes of power better, he'll only have cult-like loyalists around him and in his cabinet, and with the Supreme Court's ridiculous ruling on immunity (something he didn't have the first time) he'll feel free to do any immoral, unethical, or unconstitutional thing he wants.
And you KNOW it.
Right. You predicted all this the first time and were completely wrong. But now an older Trump whose won reelection, vindicated himself and guaranteed going out a winner (the only thing he actually cares about) will somehow turn into a human dynamo and overthrow the US government. Sure.
The fact is the Republicans around him were able to prevent the majority of the damage he wanted to cause in his four years.
A minimum of 16 Trump administration veterans have sharply criticized the ex-president, with terms such as "threat to democracy," "erratic," "delusional" and "narcissistic."
Trump's 'extraordinary' number of critics who have worked for him (usatoday.com)
Also, the other side to your question should be noted, which is "Democrat Presidents have run things for 12 out of the last 16 years yet none of them have taken all your guns away or rounded up conservatives for their political views or wiped-out capitalism or closed Churches or sent anyone to FEMA camps. So why all the fearmongering? Oh, that's right, because that's all they have is fearmongering to keep their rightwing conservative base in line. Have to regularly scare them with the threat of communism and liberals taking all their guns away to get them to show up at the polls.
The scumbag already tried it once, with his attempt to unconstitutionally usurp power after losing the last election.
Trump regularly says he is the greatest this or the smartest that, even says he has the most beautiful body, makes a daily mockery of the English language and clarity, pathologically lies, and bullies every single person who dares oppose him, and you think he should be president.
Is Mark Milley stupid, or your preferred candidate?
And those failings make him worse than people whose defects caused the deaths of tens of millions of people?
s Mark Milley stupid, or your preferred candidate?
They both can be stupid, or dishonest and desperate for attention. There's nothing mutually exclusive about it.
One does not get to be Chairman of the JCS by being stupid
I dont care about who he is better or worse than , I care about what he is. We should make him president because he's not as deadly as Stalin? What kind of rationale is that? It is absurd.
But the first sentence of the seed claims that Trump, is in fact, more dangerous than Hitler and Stalin and everyone else who actually caused widespread destruction and death on levels Americans have never had to deal with. That sort of nonsense goes right to the credibility of whoever makes such a claim.
The Donald make GEN Milley the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
so what
Lol.
I guess when you have to summarily dismiss the premise of the article as irrelevant (easier than trying to defend it on its merits,no doubt) I guess there's nothing left for me to say.
MAGA has gone through a sort of evolution as it got rid of any of the sane Republicans that kept Trump in check when he was President. Now most of those around Trump have been replaced with loyal sycophant yes men who only seek to please his ego so the breaks have been disabled and if he gets another four years to wreak havoc there is no doubt he will. I think those who worked with him in the past know how dangerous he is and, just like Hitler hadn't committed genocide when he first came to power, it would take those kinds of enablers which Trump has now surrounded himself with to actually take that next step. Trump is a danger because he has followed in the footsteps of his Fascist heroes and now simply has to close the deal by getting into office again in order to carry out his fascist agenda.
"I want what I want"
"That's not fair"
Hyperbole anyone?
Some people ask why compare Trump to Hitler? Its not accurate or fair.
A better question is , why put someone in the presidency who is being compared, by intelligent knowledgeable people , to the early days of historical authoritarians. We dont have to take the risk Trump represents just because he's never done the most authoritarian actions yet.
He acts more like the buffoonish leader of a police state in a Marx Brothers movie or a Mad Magazine satire than he does like a real American leader.
Fuck him.
The same people used literally the same talking points about Dick Cheney, who is now one of the "good Republicans."
when you used the same arguments to pigeon hole people as vastly different as Cheney and Trump as the same thing, it's a good sign the arguments are nonsense.
Utterly ridiculous. You are out of talking points and "reasons".
My only interest in Dick Cheney is if he could move a few votes away from the maniac.
Let me ask you a question? Does Trump talk like a lunatic or not? remember, we have an endless supply of quotes from him because he cant keep his mouth shut. He recently said that immigrant gangs have "taken over" Aurora Colorado, a city of 400,000 people. When this garbage is called out, by the mayor and police of that city, we hear the pathetic excuse that the gangs have made trouble in a few apartment buildings. A few apartment buildings in a city of 400,000 people? Why cant he just tell the truth, or even sound sane? He is beyond unhinged. And thats not going to change in the next three weeks, its going to get worse.
y only interest in Dick Cheney is if he could move a few votes away from the maniac
Again, if you use the same "arguments" to lump Cheney and Trump together, which is what the left is doing, then the arguments make no sense.
Cheney and Trump, who agree on almos
few apartment buildings in a city of 400,000 people?
Who cares about illegal immigrants taking over apartment buildings and terrorizing their residents ? That's your argument now???
Do you not understand how normal people react to that? By all means, if you want Trump to win, keep telling people it's perfectly okay that foreign gangs took over apartment complexes.
That should tell you something right there.
Only once?
Hmmm...
Here's something from another article on the same subject...
Steven Cheung, Trump's campaign spokesperson, told Newsweek in an email Sunday night: "President Trump is 100% correct—those who seek to undermine democracy by sowing chaos in our elections are a direct threat, just like the terrorist from Afghanistan that was arrested for plotting multiple attacks on Election Day within the United States."
That's just flabbergasting. No one has sought to "undermine democracy by sowing chaos in our elections" more than Donald Trump himself.
These people have no shame, or honor.
If Trump is elected the country will have no honor.
The country will. It's highest representative will not.