Trump Takes Speech In Direction Of Calling Us All 'Vermin'
Look, New York Times, we fixed it for you!
This weekend, during a speech at a rally in Claremont, New Hampshire, former President Donald Trump celebrated Veterans Day by congratulating himself for ending the legal murder of veterans throughout the land, praised some dictators and also echoed some dictators of the past by referring to his political enemies as “vermin.” Because of course he did.
“They would treat them terribly and you couldn’t do a damn this about it. They were in there … they were sadists. This wasn’t prime time for our people and they weren’t about to defend themselves,” he said, referring to the VA. “They had people that would really mistreat our veterans and we couldn’t do a thing about it because of ‘the laws.’ Civil service and otherwise, you couldn’t do a thing. They could be as bad as they wanted. They could do everything up to murder. And the way they treated – some of these people were just horrible people. You couldn’t fire them. And now we looked at them and we took about 7000 of them and we said, ‘You’re fired! Get out! Get out!'”
As with most things that come out of his mouth, it was not 100 percent clear what he was talking about here, though a search for Trump + Veterans + Murder brings up articles about the time he cleared three veterans for war crimes (the murders of four civilian non-combatants, which admittedly sounds rather quaint at this point).
“I did not have Trump praising Chairman Mao on my bingo card,” wrote one social media user, referring to comments Trump made about the Chinese communist dictator, in the context of sharing his own dream of executing all the drug dealers. You know what? I did. Because the man’s great love of strongman dictators knows no political bounds. It doesn’t matter what someone actually believed so long as they got some mass murder going on and portraits of themselves everywhere. One must have priorities.
Trump, by the way, asked his audience if any of them would oppose executing drug dealers and only one person was opposed. This was not terribly surprising, as there are only two reasons to support the death penalty A) You haven’t thought about it too hard and also have no idea how many innocent people have been convicted in our courts of law, or B) you’re just super bloodthirsty. It seems like the latter type would be most likely to show up at a Trump rally.
‘Twas not, however, just Mao he praised. He swooned over authoritarian dictators Vladimir Putin of Russia and Viktor Orbán of Hungary. He drooled over North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and China’s president Xi Jinping like a tween in love with whoever today’s Jonathan Taylor Thomas is.
But perhaps the most controversial bit out of everything in his speech was the part where he called us all vermin, just like Hitler or Mussolini would have.
Via Washington Post:
“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,” Trump said toward the end of his speech, repeating his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. “They’ll do anything whether legally or illegally to destroy America and to destroy the American Dream.”
Trump went on further to state: “the threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within. Because if you have a capable, competent, smart tough leader: Russia, China, North Korea, they’re not going to want to play with us.”
I don’t know if it’s so much a “capable, competent, smart tough” leader thing, so much as I suppose it would be the foreign policy version of twirling around and yelling a bunch of weird shit while holding your keys between your fingers, so that the guy walking too close to you in the parking garage will leave you alone. Not sure how well that one works with unhinged dictators though.
Naturally, when The New York Times initially wrote this story up, their headline was “Trump Takes Speech in a Very Different Direction,” no mention of “vermin.” Compare this to their headline about Hillary Clinton’s deplorable remark, “Hillary Clinton Calls Many Trump Backers ‘Deplorables,’ and G.O.P. Pounces.”
Ah, the liberal media.
That was not even the only time that day he did that bit, either. He posted pretty much the same thing on his sad lonely social media site, Truth Social:
In honor of our great Veterans on Veteran's Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our Country, lie, steal, and cheat on Elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American Dream. The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave, than the threat from within. Despite the hatred and anger of the Radical Left Lunatics who want to destroy our Country, we will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
Now, I can’t imagine what Trump supporters would say if a Democratic politician called them vermin, but given how they wailed and moaned over Hillary Clinton calling them deplorable, and how het up they’ve been this weekend over comedian Bill Burr’s wife, Nia Reneé Hill, giving Trump/AMERICA the finger … I don’t see them handling that one too well. Tears would not be out of the question.
I fully admit that I have a hard time ginning up that kind of sincere personal offense to it, mostly because of how he is an idiot. That said, calling your political enemies “vermin” is deeply disturbing and purposely dehumanizing. Hillary Clinton may have called Trump supporters “deplorable,” but she didn’t say they weren’t human beings. The whole purpose of doing this, especially for an authoritarian like Trump, is to justify and incite violence against those he doesn’t like. Or to go along with “rooting” those people out (and doing what with them?). It would go over a lot less well if he were to say “Hey, you know your liberal mom? We’re gonna root her out and destroy her!” But people you don’t know who barely even count as people? Go for it!
Given that he has also recently shared his dream of “camps” to force undocumented people into for eventual deportation purposes, he’s probably not just being dramatic.
a-HA! My new drag name: Ethel Vermin!
Let's be honest. Trump called us vermin because he can't pronounce untermenschen.