Trump’s 'poisoning the US blood' rhetoric echoes fascist propaganda of the 1930s: columnist

06 October 2023

Newsmax and other MAGA media outlets often accuse the mainstream media of going out of their way to report negative things about 2024 GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump. But Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi, The Bulwark's Charlie Sykes (a Never Trump conservative) and political journalist/author Brian Klaas have a very different viewpoint.

Farhi, Sykes and Klaas have all argued that Trump says so many outrageous and disturbing things that journalists are dropping the ball by underreporting the former president's increasingly violent rhetoric. Klaas has used the phrase "banality of crazy" to describe an environment in which people become desensitized to Trump making dangerous remarks.

MSNBC's Steve Benen, in a MaddowBlog opinion column published on October 5, describes a disturbing Trump interview that has "generated less attention": one in which Trump's rhetoric, according to historian/author Ruth Ben-Ghiat, echoed Nazi rhetoric of the 1930s.

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

Interviewed by the National Pulse, Trump discussed the abundance of migrants crossing the U.S./Mexico border and said, "Nobody has any idea where these people are coming from, and we know they come from prisons. We know they come from mental institutions and insane asylums. We know they're terrorists. Nobody has ever seen anything like we're witnessing right now. It is a very sad thing for our country. It's poisoning the blood of our country. It's so bad, and people coming in with disease. People are coming in with every possible thing that you could have."

Benen emphasizes that although "attacking those seeking a better life in the United States" is nothing new for Trump, his "poisoning the blood of our country" rhetoric is.

Meidas Touch's J.D. Wolf, on October 3, noted that in Chapter 11 of his book "Mein Kampf" ("My Battle"), Adolf Hitler wrote, " All great cultures of the past perished only because the originally creative race died out from blood poisoning."

Benen explains, "Laura Barrón-López, White House correspondent for PBS, told viewers last night, 'I checked with a historian, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, and she said that language that he's using.... echoes language used in Nazi propaganda by Adolf Hitler when Adolf Hitler actually said that Jewish people and migrants were 'causing a blood poisoning' of Germany."

Read Steve Benen's full MSNBC opinion column at this link.

From Your Site Articles