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Rhetoric has a history. The terms democracy and tyranny were debated in ancient Greece. The term separation of powers became important in the 17th and 18th centuries. The term vermin as a political term dates back to the 1930s and 1940s, when both fascists and communists liked to describe their political opponents not only as insects, weeds, dirt, and animals, but also as pests, parasites, and blood-borne diseases. I was reading. The term was revived and reinvigorated in the US presidential election campaign when Donald Trump described his opponent as a “radical leftist thug” who “lives like a vermin.”
This language is not just ugly and offensive. These words belong to a specific tradition. Adolf Hitler often used this type of language. In 1938, he praised his compatriots for helping to “cleanse Germany of all the parasites that drank from the well of despair of the fatherland and the people.” In occupied Warsaw, a 1941 poster featured a caricature of a Jewish face along with a picture of a louse. The slogan was “Jews are lice. They cause typhus.” In contrast, the Germans were clean, pure, healthy and free of pests. Hitler once described the Nazi flag as “a sign of the victory of freedom and purity of blood.”
Stalin also used similar words around the same time. He called the opposition “enemies of the people”, implying that they are not citizens and do not enjoy any rights. He portrayed them as pests, pollution, and filth, “subjects of continuous purification,” and inspired his fellow communists to adopt similar rhetoric. In my files are notes from a 1955 meeting of the leaders of East Germany’s secret police, the Stasi, in which one of the leaders called out “pest activity” (the German word for this, inevitably). He called for a fight against the government. Schädlingstätigkeiten), by which he meant the purge and arrest of regime critics. During the same period, the Stasi forcibly removed suspicious persons from the West German border in a project known as Operation Vermin.
This type of language was not limited to Europe. Mao Zedong also called his political opponents “poisonous plants.” Pol Pot spoke of “cleansing” hundreds of thousands of his countrymen so that Cambodia could be “cleansed.”
In each of these very different societies, the purpose of this kind of rhetoric was the same. If you associate your adversaries with disease, disease, and poisoned blood, dehumanize them as insects and animals, and crush or cleanse them as if they were vermin and germs, much more You can easily arrest them and take away their rights. It disenfranchises them, excludes them, and even kills them. If you’re a parasite, you’re not a human. If they are pests, they cannot enjoy free speech or any kind of freedom. And if you destroy them, you will not be held responsible.
Until recently, this kind of language was not a regular part of American presidential politics. Such language was avoided in George Wallace’s infamously racist, neo-Confederate 1963 speech, in his inaugural address as governor of Alabama, and even in the run-up to his first presidential campaign. “Quarantine today, quarantine tomorrow, quarantine forever,” Wallace said. But he stopped short of calling his political opponents “vermin” or saying they were poisoning the people’s blood. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, which ordered Japanese Americans to be sent to internment camps after the outbreak of World War II, did mention “alien enemies,” but parasites was not mentioned.
The 2024 campaign crosses that line. President Trump has blurred the distinction between illegal and legal immigrants, the latter of which includes his wife, his late ex-wife, his vice presidential candidate’s in-laws, and many others. “They are polluting the blood of our country,” he said of immigrants. “They are destroying the blood of our country.” He claimed that many people have “bad genes”. He also states more clearly: They are animals. They are cold-blooded murderers. He refers to his opponents, the American people, some of whom are elected officials, more broadly as “the enemy from within… the sick, the lunatics of the radical left.” They not only have no rights; These should be handled “by the National Guard if necessary, or by the military if really necessary,” he said.
By using this word, Trump knows exactly what he is doing. He understands what kind of politics this language evokes in what era. “I haven’t read ‘Mein Kampf,'” he declared at one rally, baselessly. This is an admission that you know what Hitler’s manifesto contains, whether you actually read it or not. “If you don’t use certain rhetoric, if you don’t use certain words, even if they’re probably not very good words, nothing will happen,” he told an interviewer.
His talk of mass deportation is similarly calculated. When he suggests that he will target both legal and illegal immigrants or use military force arbitrarily against American citizens, he is referring to past authoritarian regimes who used public platforms to rally public support. They are doing so knowing that they have been flaunting violence. By calling for mass violence, he hints at his admiration for these dictatorships, but also shows his disdain for the rule of law, ensuring that his regime, like its predecessors, breaks the law with impunity. It is preparing its supporters to accept the idea that it is possible.
These aren’t jokes, and Trump isn’t laughing. So do the people around him. Participants at the Republican National Convention held up prefabricated signs. Mass deportation now. Just this week, as Trump swayed to music at a surreal rally, he did so in front of a giant slogan. Trump was right about everything. This is a phrase borrowed directly from Italian fascist Benito Mussolini. Shortly after the rally, academic Ruth Ben Guhiat posted a photo of a building in Mussolini’s Italy emblazoned with his slogan. mussolini is always right.
These phrases didn’t just randomly appear on posters and banners in the final weeks of America’s election season. With less than three weeks left, most candidates will be fighting to win the middle, or swing, vote. Mr. Trump is doing exactly the opposite. why? There’s only one answer. That’s because he and his campaign team believe they can win using 1930s tactics. The deliberate dehumanization of entire groups of people. President Trump said there would be more police, violence and “bloodshed” if he didn’t win. Cultivating hatred not only against immigrants, but also against political opponents, are all poorly utilized in contemporary American politics.
But this rhetoric has not even been attempted in contemporary American politics. Generations of American politicians have argued that this is because most American voters learned to swear allegiance to the flag in school, were raised under the rule of law, and have never experienced occupation or invasion. I have assumed that there will be resistance to the words and images of seeds. . Trump is knowingly and cynically betting that we are not.
