Hate speech was perhaps the key element that led Donald Trump to winning the 2016 Presidential election; divisiveness has been his presidential trademark since he was a candidate. Similar to multiple modern dictators and tyrants from all around the world, Trump’s rhetoric was primarily established on the basis of scapegoating minorities, blaming them for any failures and promising to torture members of these minorities as a “Tough President” who is capable of making America Great Again.
What makes us choose to follow men like this?
Trump has promised
several times to keep the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp open, when human rights
violations in the camp have become general knowledge, he kept promising to “load
it up with some bad dudes” to further portray himself as a powerful president,
while casually declaring that as President he would bring back “a hell of a lot
worse than waterboarding”. It worked well for him, at least during the previous
election and there is a good reason for it; when people are fed up with the
situation under a tough economy, they might be willing to turn their backs on established
political institutions to support a strong leader they think can solve the
problem, in that sense Trump’s rise to power is awkwardly similar to that of
Hitler, and both were supported by Nazis.
However,
Trump’s rhetoric was a bit more ironic than Hitler’s; he was an
anti-establishment Presidential candidate who highlighted a zillion times that
the system was rigged, right after he gained the “Conservative” Party’s ticket.
The
traditional explanation offered to rationalize Hitler’s rise to power can be
used in Trump’s case; when human beings are not successful in life, and they
feel threatened economically and physically, they seek some explanation and
ideally it is an explanation that shifts responsibility or blame from
themselves to some other scapegoat.
According to
Trump, “When Mexico sends its people, they are not sending their best, they are
not sending you, they are not sending you; they are sending people that have
lots of problems, and they are bringing those problems with us [he might have
meant bringing those problems with them, or bringing those problems to us, if
you find it troubling check Covfefe in the
urban dictionary]. They are bringing drugs, they are bringing crime, they are rapists,
and some I assume are good people”.
He claims to
know for a fact that they are criminals, rapists and drug dealers, but he “assumes”
that some of them are good people (just not sure enough). The same person who
said during an interview, “I think Islam hates us” or in a speech “I want surveillance
of certain mosques”. His attacks on minorities granted him the support of those
who hate members of these minorities and are willing to hold them accountable
for all crimes and failures.
Nowadays, a
shift can be witnessed in Trump’s rhetoric, as he suddenly decided to call for
unity. Last night he tweeted:
OK, so after two years of hard work and each party trying their best to make the other party look as bad as possible, it’s time to get back to business. The Mueller Report strongly stated that there was No Collusion with Russia (of course) and, in fact, they were rebuffed.....— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 3, 2019
...at every turn in attempts to gain access. But now Republicans and Democrats must come together for the good of the American people. No more costly & time consuming investigations. Lets do Immigration (Border), Infrastructure, much lower drug prices & much more - and do it now!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 3, 2019
During his annual State of the Union Speech he said “"Together we can break decades of political stalemate, we can bridge old divisions, heal old wounds, build new coalitions, forge new solutions and unlock the extraordinary promise of America’s future”.
This shift in attitude can probably be attributed to different factors, perhaps he is not doing as well as an incumbent President should be in terms of polls, or maybe he has started to feel the Bern, as he used Bernie Sanders’ style of tackling the injustice of wealth distribution in the country, while tweaking it to support his border policies:
It is definitely too late for the US President to play the unity card, or even the working-class one, and hopefully bigots’ votes won’t be enough to get him reelected.
Is it a
Dictatorship?
Are Hispanics, Muslims, and/or other minorities in the United States suffering intimidation, terror, and suppression of basic civil liberties? Check this story of a Muslim Resident who had a valid work permit and was detained by Trump’s Administration; Adnan Asif Parveen, was held by border patrol in Texas and was only fed pork sandwiches for a week. This is not a “controversial” story about an illegal immigrant who Trump supporters would claim to be “dangerous”; this man had a valid work permit and was basically detained because of his religious belief.
Both Hitler and Trump relied on National Exceptionalism to increase their popularity. When Hitler attempted to rule the world, he promoted for the Nationalistic Notion that it was the perfect position for the German people to be on the top of all others. Now the world may need citizens of the US to put an end to Neo-Nazism.
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