>The second apparent attempt on Donald Trump’s life – on Sunday at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida – occurred just over two months after he was wounded during an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. “They’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you,” the former president said after the first attempt. “I’m just standing in the way.”
>“They” should not be coming after anyone. There is no place in a democracy for violence, nor for threats of violence.
>Which brings me to Trump’s claim in last week’s debate that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are “eating the dogs … eating the cats. They’re eating – they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
>It quickly became a vast internet joke, fueling thousands of hilarious memes and songs. But it’s no laughing matter. Trump’s claim has already provoked threats of violence.
>Last weekend, two hospitals in Springfield were locked down after bomb threats, police said. Other threats received by Springfield officials have forced government buildings to close, two elementary schools to be evacuated and the students moved to a different location, and a middle school to shut down altogether.
>After Republican VP nominee JD Vance first began spreading baseless rumors about Haitians in Springfield, members of the neo-Nazi group “Blood Tribe” marched into the city carrying guns, wearing body armor, and carrying Neo-Nazi flags. At a 27 August town hall meeting, one claimed that the city had been taken over by “degenerate third worlders”, blamed Jewish people for the influx, and warned “crime and savagery will only increase with every Haitian you allow in.”
>Springfield’s Haitian immigrants say they are afraid. Some have kept their children home from school, fearing violence. Others have reported harassment on the street, in their cars, and at stores.
>Yet Trump and Vance are doubling down. On Sunday, before the attempt on Trump’s life, Vance said on CNN that the claims about Haitians eating the pets of Springfield residents came from “firsthand accounts from my constituents”. When interviewer Dana Bash suggested that the claims had caused bomb threats, Vance called her a “Democratic propagandist”. But the connection is indisputable.
>In demonizing and dehumanizing migrants, Trump and Vance are not just seeking to win over a few wavering voters across the nation or making a play for control of the Senate. They are trying to scare America into becoming a more fearsome, more racist nation.
>“They’re poisoning the blood of our country,” Trump said of immigrants at a rally in New Hampshire eight months ago – virtually quoting Adolf Hitler, who wrote in Mein Kampf: “All great cultures of the past perished only because the originally creative race died out from blood poisoning.”
>Meanwhile, members of Trump’s social media war room – including Trump confidante Laura Loomer, known for sexist, homophobic, transphobic, anti-Muslim, and antisemitic posts – are busily spreading AI-generated images of dogs and cats being protected by Trump, along with other content promoting the claim that pets are being eaten by Haitians.
>Let me repeat: there is no justification whatsoever for violence or threats of violence in our democracy. While utterly despicable, Sunday’s second apparent assassination attempt on Trump can be seen as a symptom of the hate-filled politics that he and Vance are peddling.
PoliticalCanvas on
Results of “politics without morals” of Political Realism. And “fantasy without boundaries” of USA version of postmodernism, which unlike the European one do not recognize inviolability of own foundation (Rational Humanism, Secularism, Rule of Law, Democracy, Freedoms).
Together with mercantilism and extreme individualism was created quite a corrosive mixture for any forms of social organizations. Potentially much more dangerous one than “just” modern forms of the USA dualistic tribalistic political subcultures.
JumentousPetrichor on
What pray tell would be an approximate level of normalization of political violence and fearmongering bigotry, Robert?
3 Comments
>The second apparent attempt on Donald Trump’s life – on Sunday at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida – occurred just over two months after he was wounded during an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. “They’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you,” the former president said after the first attempt. “I’m just standing in the way.”
>“They” should not be coming after anyone. There is no place in a democracy for violence, nor for threats of violence.
>Which brings me to Trump’s claim in last week’s debate that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are “eating the dogs … eating the cats. They’re eating – they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
>It quickly became a vast internet joke, fueling thousands of hilarious memes and songs. But it’s no laughing matter. Trump’s claim has already provoked threats of violence.
>Last weekend, two hospitals in Springfield were locked down after bomb threats, police said. Other threats received by Springfield officials have forced government buildings to close, two elementary schools to be evacuated and the students moved to a different location, and a middle school to shut down altogether.
>After Republican VP nominee JD Vance first began spreading baseless rumors about Haitians in Springfield, members of the neo-Nazi group “Blood Tribe” marched into the city carrying guns, wearing body armor, and carrying Neo-Nazi flags. At a 27 August town hall meeting, one claimed that the city had been taken over by “degenerate third worlders”, blamed Jewish people for the influx, and warned “crime and savagery will only increase with every Haitian you allow in.”
>Springfield’s Haitian immigrants say they are afraid. Some have kept their children home from school, fearing violence. Others have reported harassment on the street, in their cars, and at stores.
>Yet Trump and Vance are doubling down. On Sunday, before the attempt on Trump’s life, Vance said on CNN that the claims about Haitians eating the pets of Springfield residents came from “firsthand accounts from my constituents”. When interviewer Dana Bash suggested that the claims had caused bomb threats, Vance called her a “Democratic propagandist”. But the connection is indisputable.
>In demonizing and dehumanizing migrants, Trump and Vance are not just seeking to win over a few wavering voters across the nation or making a play for control of the Senate. They are trying to scare America into becoming a more fearsome, more racist nation.
>“They’re poisoning the blood of our country,” Trump said of immigrants at a rally in New Hampshire eight months ago – virtually quoting Adolf Hitler, who wrote in Mein Kampf: “All great cultures of the past perished only because the originally creative race died out from blood poisoning.”
>Meanwhile, members of Trump’s social media war room – including Trump confidante Laura Loomer, known for sexist, homophobic, transphobic, anti-Muslim, and antisemitic posts – are busily spreading AI-generated images of dogs and cats being protected by Trump, along with other content promoting the claim that pets are being eaten by Haitians.
>Let me repeat: there is no justification whatsoever for violence or threats of violence in our democracy. While utterly despicable, Sunday’s second apparent assassination attempt on Trump can be seen as a symptom of the hate-filled politics that he and Vance are peddling.
Results of “politics without morals” of Political Realism. And “fantasy without boundaries” of USA version of postmodernism, which unlike the European one do not recognize inviolability of own foundation (Rational Humanism, Secularism, Rule of Law, Democracy, Freedoms).
Together with mercantilism and extreme individualism was created quite a corrosive mixture for any forms of social organizations. Potentially much more dangerous one than “just” modern forms of the USA dualistic tribalistic political subcultures.
What pray tell would be an approximate level of normalization of political violence and fearmongering bigotry, Robert?