Donald Trump and his campaign have quickly responded to Sunday\u2019s threat to the former president\u2019s life by blaming Democrats. High on their list of alleged offenses? Democrats\u2019 having called Trump a \u201cthreat to democracy\u201d and a \u201cfascist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump spotlighted the \u201cthreat to democracy\u201d rhetoric in a Fox News interview Monday in which he directly blamed President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. His running mate, JD Vance, referenced the \u201cfascist\u201d rhetoric at an event later in the day in Georgia.<\/p>\n
Given what is being investigated as a second attempt to assassinate Trump, a debate over whether political rhetoric goes too far is valid. Plenty would argue \u2014 and are arguing \u2014 that it\u2019s fair to affix the \u201cthreat to democracy\u201d label to a guy who, after all, tried to overturn the 2020 election based on lies. And whether \u201cfascist\u201d is appropriate or not, Trump has certainly adopted some authoritarian-leaning proposals. He even talked about needing to be a dictator on Day One of his presidency and floated the idea of \u201cterminating\u201d parts of the Constitution.<\/p>\n
There remains no evidence that the gunmen in the two incidents were actually incited by Democrats\u2019 rhetoric.<\/p>\n
But even if we set all that aside, Trump\u2019s argument is flawed by a significant deficit: He uses these talking points a lot more than his opponents right now \u2014 and has been for months.<\/p>\n
Democrats largely turned the page on the \u201cthreat to democracy\u201d talking point ever since the first Trump assassination attempt and Harris\u2019s replacement of Biden in July. The Biden and Harris political efforts have rarely called Trump a \u201cfascist.\u201d They\u2019ve made other arguments in that vein, but not as directly.<\/p>\n
Nor have they been as direct as Trump has, repeatedly.<\/p>\n
According to a Washington Post review of campaign appearances and social media posts, Trump has called Harris, the Democrats or other perceived foes a \u201cthreat to democracy\u201d a dozen times in the past month and more than 20 times since Harris got into the race.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe shouldn\u2019t be there anyway. She got no votes,\u201d Trump said Friday in Las Vegas. \u201cShe\u2019s a threat to democracy, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re the threat to democracy with the fake \u2018Russia, Russia, Russia\u2019 investigation that went nowhere,\u201d Trump said at last week\u2019s debate.<\/p>\n
\u201cTHE FAILING NEW YORK TIMES IS A TRUE THREAT TO DEMOCRACY!\u201d Trump posted on social media just hours before Ryan Wesley Routh was apprehended Sunday after he allegedly hid himself in the bushes with a rifle and scope close to where Trump was golfing in West Palm Beach, Fla.<\/p>\n
Trump has also used the \u201cfascist\u201d label at least seven times in the past month, and he used it dozens more times before that.<\/p>\n
He invoked fascism twice Friday alone, including by calling Harris a \u201cradical-left Marxist communist fascist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harris and her campaign haven\u2019t used such rhetoric nearly as much in recent months. The Trump campaign has pointed to specific examples of supposedly dangerous Democratic rhetoric, but much of it is months old at this point.<\/p>\n
The campaign on Monday posted four X posts from Harris herself, but the dates were conspicuously cropped out; it turns out none of the posts came after July 4.<\/p>\n
Kamala Harris has consistently called President Trump a \u201cdictator\u201d and \u201ca threat to democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Make no mistake: it\u2019s Kamala and the Democrats who are the party of violence. pic.twitter.com\/N7bhK2g7nf<\/p>\n
\u2014 Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) September 16, 2024<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
About the most applicable semi-recent example cited by the Trump campaign was from Harris\u2019s now-running mate, Tim Walz, in late July, when he agreed that Trump and Vance were a \u201cthreat to democracy\u201d and would \u201cput people\u2019s lives in danger.\u201d Walz added: \u201cThe fascists depend on fear. The fascists depend on us going back.\u201d<\/p>\n
These comments came after the first assassination attempt on Trump but before the Minnesota governor was picked to join the Democratic ticket.<\/p>\n
Trump allies have also pointed to Biden\u2019s invoking the f-word by describing \u201csemi-fascism\u201d within the MAGA movement \u2014 a comment for which Republicans roundly criticized him. That comment came in 2022.<\/p>\n
The Post\u2019s review found other Biden and Harris allies invoking the \u201cthreat to democracy\u201d language in recent weeks, but not extensively and generally not from the campaign. They include Republican and conservative Harris endorsers such as former congresswomen Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Barbara Comstock (R-Va.), and former federal judge J. Michael Luttig. Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on Monday night cited Trump\u2019s \u201cdanger to our country and the world.\u201d And former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), in an interview at the Democratic National Convention last month, called Trump \u201ca threat to our democracy of the kind that we have not seen.\u201d<\/p>\n
But even at the convention, that kind of commentary wasn\u2019t a fixture. Although Biden has favored this talking point, his speech on the convention\u2019s first night more obliquely cited threats to democracy, such as Jan. 6, 2021, before citing how \u201cDonald Trump says he will refuse to accept the election result if he loses again.\u201d Harris in her own speech merely cited \u201cthe enduring struggle between democracy and tyranny.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s indicative of how this has faded as a talking point for Democrats \u2014 whether because they soured on it after the first Trump assassination attempt, when some Republicans cried foul, or because they didn\u2019t see it paying political dividends, or some combination of both. But, at the same time, Trump has gone full speed ahead on this rhetoric.<\/p>\n
Republicans would undoubtedly argue that the old comments are still applicable when it comes to potentially inciting violence (even as there remains no evidence that they did in these cases). And Trump often mentions Democrats\u2019 past \u201cthreat to democracy\u201d attacks while affixing the label to them, in his trademark I\u2019m-rubber-you\u2019re-glue strategy.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s still conspicuous that the Trump campaign would highlight specific charges that Trump himself has been making a lot more than his opponents have. If this kind of rhetoric is so dangerous and Trump\u2019s opponents have backed off it, why wouldn\u2019t Trump do the same \u2014 in the spirit of lowering the temperature?<\/p>\n
Of course, despite the claims about the danger of Democrats\u2019 rhetoric, Trump\u2019s has often gone well beyond even \u201cthreat to democracy.\u201d He has repeatedly and suggestively promoted the prospect of political violence. He once promoted the words of a supporter who said, \u201cThe only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.\u201d Just last year, he promoted a social media user who pledged to \u201cphysically fight\u201d for him and talked about having his gun \u201cLocked and LOADED.\u201d He has downplayed the crimes his supporters committed on Jan. 6, 2021, and expressed support for them.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s good to have a conversation about the dangers of overheated political rhetoric. It\u2019s just that, as is often the case, Trump has left his party without a principled leg to stand on. And that, combined with the rush to judgment in a situation we still know little about, could sure lead one to understand this as a political ploy.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Donald Trump and his campaign have quickly responded to Sunday\u2019s threat to the former president\u2019s life by blaming Democrats. High on their list of alleged offenses? Democrats\u2019 having called Trump a \u201cthreat to democracy\u201d and a \u201cfascist.\u201d Trump spotlighted the \u201cthreat to democracy\u201d rhetoric in a Fox News interview Monday in which he directly blamed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9694,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}