'Violently authoritarian': Alarm over Trump’s threat to use military against Americans

14 October 2024

Donald Trump over the weekend repeatedly said he wants to use the U.S. military against Americans who oppose him, called his critics “the enemy from within,” and declared they are more dangerous than America’s greatest foreign adversaries, including Russia, China, and North Korea.

“I always say we have the outside enemy, so you can say China, you can say Russia, you can say, Kim Jung-Un,” Trump told supporters at an Aurora, Colorado rally on Friday (video below). But, he added: “It’s the enemy from within, all the scum that we have to deal with. that hate our country. That’s a bigger enemy than China and Russia,” he said as the audience cheered.

On Sunday, Trump told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo of his desire to use armed forces against Americans on Election Day.

“I think the bigger problem are the people from within, we have some very bad people, we have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the — and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary by the military.”

Pointing to those remarks, constitutional law scholar Laurence Tribe says, “Just think what this means for the 2028 election if Trump & Vance are in control as of January 20, 2025.”

In both events Trump had been talking about undocumented immigrants before switching his target to American citizens.

AFP called his remarks against U.S. citizens a “sinister election-related threat.” Rolling Stone called it a “a fascist plan to deploy military forces against U.S. citizens who oppose him on election day.” HuffPost described his remarks as “echoing similar language used by Nazis,” and HuffPost legal/justice reporter Brandi Buchman warned the “level of danger that people face if he is ever allowed near office again cannot be understated.” The New Republic declared Trump went “Full Dictator.”

“Trump as President and Commander in Chief would seek to wage war on the American people,” warned historian and professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert on fascism and authoritarianism. She adds, “our armed forces could have a new authoritarian role: domestic repression. ‘Handling’ the Leader’s enemies=violence.”

Attorney and former federal and state prosecutor Eric Lisann responded, writing: “Trump has already requested military equipment and protection for him now, as a mere candidate. He will gut the military of its finest leaders, many of whom have identified the historic threat he poses to the country, and turn it into his personal guard.”

The popular historian and professor Heather Cox Richardson called Trump’s attack on his political opponents, “the full leap to authoritarianism.”

“Trump’s full-throated embrace of Nazi ‘race science’ and fascism is deadly dangerous,” she added, noting his “campaign seems to be deliberately pushing the comparisons to historic American fascism by announcing that Trump will hold a rally at New York City’s Madison Square Garden on October 27, an echo of a February 1939 rally held there by American Nazis in honor of President George Washington’s birthday.”

And historian Steven A. Woodbridge wrote: “Pointing to the ‘enemy within’ is a classic strategy used by those with authoritarian tendencies many times in the past & it would appear nothing has changed. This man is a clear threat to democracy.”

Journalist Ahmed Baba warned, “Trump’s rhetoric is growing more violently authoritarian. His migrant fear-mongering is increasingly racist and now he’s once again saying he’ll deploy the military against people he disagrees with. Trump’s insane authoritarianism is the most important story of this election.”

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