Trump's Violent Political Rhetoric Threatens All Americans

Incredibly and unabashedly, in the midst of incendiary and wholly debunked claims about immigrants in Ohio, former U.S. President Donald Trump and his running mate Sen. JD Vance declare that Vice President Kamala Harris' characterization of Trump as a "threat to democracy" incites political violence.

"Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at," Trump recently told Fox News Digital.

While Harris and Walz regularly declare that Trump threatens democracy, that he will take away women's rights and imperil Americans' rights to vote, they do not issue violent rhetoric to convince voters to support them. The Republican candidates, however, employ ruthless, inflammatory language on a daily basis. Just last Thursday, before an audience of Jewish Americans, Trump warned that Israel will endure "total annihilation" if Harris is elected. Earlier this month in Wisconsin, he predicted, referring to his promised mass deportation of immigrants, "getting them out will be a bloody story."

Trump's vitriolic rhetoric is the twisted declarations of a would-be dictator.

These morally debased and provocative statements imperil American society. They have extremely dangerous consequences. NBC News reported on September 16 that "At least 33 bomb threats have been made in Springfield, Ohio," since Trump and Vance spread false claims about Haitians living there. Elementary schools were targeted, and two medical facilities were forced into lockdowns.

Trump has traded in political violence since he first ran for president. In Iowa, in January 2016, he famously declared, "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?" At another campaign rally in Vermont he ordered security to "Throw them [Sander's protesters] out into the cold... No coats! Confiscate their coats."

A month later in Las Vegas, as reported in Politico, he made a physical threat against a protester. "The guards are being very gentle with him," Trump said. "I'd like to punch him in the face, I'll tell you that." He amplified the threat of physical harm to the protester by adding, "You know what they used to do to a guy like that in a place like this? They'd be carried out on a stretcher, folks."

In his 2022 book A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of State During Extraordinary Times, Mark Esper, former defense secretary in the Trump administration, recalls the vindictive rancor and reckless tendencies of former president Trump. "Complaining loudly" about protesters in the streets of Washington, D.C., Trump asked insistently, "Can't you just shoot them? Shoot them in the legs or something?" And, just last year, as widely reported in the press, Trump actually insinuated that former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley could have been executed for the assurance he gave to China after the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Indeed, the nation witnessed Trump's penchant for violence on television on January 6, 2021. His impassioned speech, his false assertion about a stolen election, agitated his supporters at the very moment that Congress was certifying the 2020 presidential election. "And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore." Their angst was undoubtedly fueled by his words, provoked into action against the government. Violence quickly followed. According to the sworn congressional testimony of an aide in the White House at the time, Trump, watching the violence unfolding on screen, said then-Vice President Mike Pence "deserves" the insurrectionists' chants of "Hang Mike Pence."

Candidate Trump seeks revenge on his political enemies. He calls the press the "enemy of the American people." He threatens lawyers, donors, political opponents, and election officials. He holds particular venom for those on the political left, casting them as "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." He pledges that "we will root [them] out."

Trump further promises violence if he does not win in November. His promise threatens the entire nation: "Now, if I don't get elected, it's gonna be a bloodbath. That's going to be the least of it. It's going to be a bloodbath for the country."

Donald Trump's vicious attacks on anyone who opposes him clearly demonstrates who is fomenting political violence. His assertion that Harris and Walz are promoting such violence is patently absurd and certainly threatens all Americans. Trump's vitriolic rhetoric is the twisted declarations of a would-be dictator. If he is elected, Trump has made it abundantly clear that he will use the government as a weapon against anyone who stands in his way. The pathology of his intentions will unleash not only political violence but actual violence in the streets of America.