ver·min
- people perceived as despicable and as causing problems for the rest of society."the vermin who ransacked her house"
Last Saturday, during a speech that was supposed to be about Veteran's Day, former President Donald Trump said this "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." He posted the same words later on social media. This is important in that this was not one of his infamous ad libs, this was a definite message that was crafted beforehand for him to announce in a holiday speech. In other words, this is the message he and his advisors wanted to make. To make matters worse, when his reference to calling political opponents "vermin" clearly seemed to echo the kind of arguments of former fascist dictators like Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini, Trump Campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said, “Those who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes grasping for anything because they are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, and their sad, miserable existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.” Not exactly the most reassuring words coming from someone who advises the man who may be the next president.
And he's not just saying these things, his advisors have said that if he wins, he plans to purge the federal government of any workers that he deems not sufficiently loyal. Then he wants to use the justice department as his personal hit squad against any of his political opponents. He has already pledged to go after the "Biden crime family" even though he won't say what for, or how his administration would somehow find crimes committed by the Bidens that the House of Representatives hasn't been able to find in their own impeachment inquiry into President Biden. Again, it's not even about successful prosecutions, it's about hurting anyone who disagrees with him, despite political disagreements being one of the cornerstones of any democracy. But then, he just wants to be a fascist dictator anyway.
And then there's his plans for immigration: Trump's attempt to carry out mass deportations as president was mostly thwarted by courts and lack of enforcement. But he and his cohorts plan to come out running if he wins, with head immigration advisor (and famously xenophobic bigot) Stephen Miller hoping to have a conservative supreme court allow the Trump administration to use not only Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents but allow the police and the national guard to conduct raids on businesses hiring undocumented immigrants. The immigrants would then be placed in camps on the border and then mass deported by the millions. Trump also wants to end birthright citizenship (which is in the constitution, but he doesn't care) and perhaps even bring back the unpopular child separation policy at the border and revive his Muslim ban. The justification for all this is that the second Trump administration would be doing what President Dwight Eisenhower did back in the 1950's when a mass deportation of undocumented immigrants was public policy. What the Trump people leave out is that Operation Wetback (yes, it was really called that!) was infamous for its brutality, with over 80 deportees dying from being left without food or water in staggering heat.
This would all be morally reprehensible, with terrible conditions being enforced, families being torn apart, and inevitably American citizens regularly being targeted by authorities and even being wrongly swept up into the camps. It would also devastate the economy, with numerous companies losing thousands of workers all at once. But it would also play into the hatred of immigrants (especially the ones from Mexico) that have driven Trump's base since day one.
None of this is new, Trump has had fascist tendencies since the very beginning, as he has praised undemocratic leaders like Vladimir Putin and Kin Jong Un because he sees them as "strong" instead of brutal dictators that censor unfavorable media and have their political opponents killed. The difference was that in his first term Trump tried to be a fascist and was blocked by laws and members of his own administration. If he gets a second term, the conservative supreme court he created and the sycophants he will surround himself with will remove most of those blockades. In other words, saying that American democracy is at stake in the next election is not just a campaign slogan, it's the truth.
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