'Ten-cent dictator’: Trump threatens mass arrests of opponents in 'cease and desist' post

25 October 2024

One of Donald Trump’s latest tweets is being roundly mocked, but some are warning the Republican presidential nominee is threatening mass arrests for his political opponents, and that it represents an America that will emerge if he is elected president again.

In his social media missive, Trump threatens to incarcerate anyone who cheats in the election, but given his long history of false allegations and accusations, some say they believe he is targeting anyone who opposes him.

Trump writes, “those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again.”

“Please beware that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country,” Trump alleges.

NBC News political reporter Allan Smith writes: “Trump again threatens ‘long term prison sentences’ for a whole range of people — lawyers, operatives, donors, voters & election officials — he thinks stole the 2020 election,” and adds, “Of course, his claims were examined in recounts, audits, court cases + investigations that debunked them.”

Journalist Tess Owen, who reports on extremism and disinformation, responded to Trump’s post by writing: “Trump promising mass arrests of his political opponents in retaliation for 2020 if he’s elected.”

Protect Democracy counsel Kristy Parker, a former federal prosecutor, responds that Trump “can promise whatever he wants, but he’ll need underlings to carry it out. Underlings with law licenses they could jeopardize and who lack the immunity from criminal prosecution SCOTUS has conferred on the president.”

Matt Glassman, a senior fellow at The Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University noted, “One way to end widespread concerns that you are a wannabe authoritarian bent on jailing large numbers of your political opponents is to not send tweets that make you sound like a wannabe authoritarian bent on jailing large numbers of your political opponents.”

Journalist and conspiracy theory expert Mike Rothschild quipped, “Donald Trump is promising large scale arrests of Democratic voters, donors, lawyers, election officials, and politicians if he wins. But I’ve been told that calling him a ‘fascist’ for vowing to purge anyone he deems an enemy is a violation of norms, and therefore impermissible.”

Some took Trump’s threat personally.

“Trump is, literally, promising to arrest all of Kamala Harris’ donors. That includes me. Trump is threatening to arrest me,” wrote strategic communications expert Dante Atkins.

“Every time his enablers try to say ‘What he had really meant was,’ Donnie doubles down. He’s now openly threatening to imprison election attorneys, political operatives (like myself) and people who donated Democrats. This is some ten-cent dictator, Banana Republic s—,” communications strategist Evan Sutton observed.

Sutton added: “Do you believe people who donate to political candidates or work for political campaigns should be imprisoned? No? Well, then you need to vote against this wannabe dictator and send grandpa back to his golden palace in Florida to live out his days golfing and rage tweeting.”

Several, including Capital & Main reporter Jeremy Lindenfeld mocked Trump’s post for having “the same energy as those Facebook posts boomers do that are basically ‘I AM POSTING SO MARK ZUCKERBERG CANNOT LEGALLY USE MY DATA. COPY AND PASTE THIS POST ON YOUR WALL TO PROTECT AGAINST FACEBOOK SPYING.'”

MSNBC/NBC News political analyst Elise Jordan remarked: “Hard not to be disturbed and distracted by the attack on the rule of law, but remember–this is the tweet of a candidate who believes he’s losing.”

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