Trump's rhetoric in the last few months has taken the racism and general hatred of anyone who doesn't unabashedly love him and his awful family and amped it into explicit calls to round up and deport or imprison or flat-out murder large swaths of the population. It's not just that he now regularly says some variation of his "vermin" line: "We will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country." That shit is frightening enough.
But he's broadened his targets. Look at this from a speech on November 11, which starts with a rant against the "deep state," that weird imagined cabal of, I guess, people who are loyal to the Constitution and not Donald Trump: "We're going to expel those horrible, horrible war mongers from our government. They want to fight everybody, they want to kill people all over the place, places we've never heard about before. Places that want to be left alone. We will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the communists, Marxist fascist. We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country. We will rout the fake news media until they become real." So the plan is to gut the government by defining, as broadly as possible, the criteria that makes you an enemy to the nation. Along with that, the government will be used to attack the media and destroy it.
What's probably most ironic here is that the "fake news" media Trump is describing is still mostly giving him a pass on this move to openly saying full-on, actually fascistic dictator shit. Sure, they're reporting on it. But they are letting other Republicans get away with not owning Trump or his rhetoric. Today on one of the goddamn Sunday shows, Ron DeSantis was asked about Elon Musk's antisemitism but not Trump's tilt into totalitarianism. Some Republicans have been asked about the "vermin" line, and, predictably, the response is a wimpy half-swat, like 2028 GOP presidential nominee Nikki Haley, who said, "I don’t agree with that statement" before turning to Trump's weird statements about Israel and Hezbollah. Well, groovy, Nikki.
That's not good enough. They need to be asked if they agree with, say, Trump's desire to end the DACA program and deport 800,000 migrants who were brought to the United States when they were children and are American in every sense except immigration status. They need to ask if they agree when Trump says, "We'll stop the invasion on our southern border and begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history." According to meth-faced Trump advisor Steve Bannon, that means the deportation of 10 million people. Ask Republicans from farm states how they feel about that. Ask if they agree and will support Trump, and ask the rest if they're okay with Trump opening up giant internment camps for migrants and having no due process. Hell, ask them if they agree with shooting shoplifters, as Trump has also said he'd allow.
Trump promised, "I will immediately restore and expand the Trump travel ban on entry from terror play [that's really what it sounds like he said] countries, which was a big thing." How do you feel about that, Republicans from Texas, where the Muslim population is growing? Or do you also admire Hungarian leader Victor Orban, who Trump praised because "He didn't allow millions of people to invade his country...So he doesn't have crime and he doesn't have the problems that they're having in other countries where millions of people are allowed to go in"? Do they believe that immigrants cause crime? By the way, except for that Orban fuckery, just about every other word here is from the written speech. It's not off-the-cuff.
Sure, way too many Republicans would say they agree with all this shit because they are, by simply being Republican, shitty people. But you can fuckin' corner these assholes like George Stephanopoulos did when he trapped over-inflated balloon animal Steve Scalise and refused to move on until Scalise said whether or not the 2020 election was "stolen." That's what needs to be done on answering for Trump. And not just whether or not they will vote for him if he's the nominee (although that's a totally valid question).
Republicans right now are losing their goddamn tiny minds. They are in-fighting between the Trump-engorged dicks (like James Comer) and the flaccid dicks who shot their Trump loads and don't wanna go again (like sad insurance salesman Kevin McCarthy). They are pissing away their majority in the House because there are just enough not-completely-bugfuck-crazy Republicans to keep the government functioning. And when they're not losing their shit at each other, they're challenging witnesses at hearings to fist fights, like Senator Markwayne "I totally look like a 'Markwayne'" Mullin of Oklahoma did. It would be hilarious if it weren't fucking terrifying.
But the reason to keep pushing all these jibbering cuntmites to answer for Trump is that we as a country need to hear that there won't be any checks or balances on him. We need to know the danger, the "stakes," as media expert Jay Rosen has stated, instead of the odds. That's gotta be clear because we also need to know what the fuck is going to happen if Trump doesn't win. It's not just that Trump goes away and it all gets better.
Another thing that Steve Bannon said recently is that the MAGA movement, such as it is, will continue after Trump. "This movement is ascendant and it’s going to go on long after Donald Trump is even more powerful and broader," Bannon proclaimed, slurping the remnants of a puppy from his lips. "We are far to the right of Trump. President Trump is a moderate in our movement. You’re going to pine in future years that you wished Donald Trump was around."
At least Bannon is admitting that what he wants is for politicians to punish everyone who doesn't grovel at the MAGA altar. Now I'd like to hear if our elected leaders are willing to admit it or deny it so I know how quickly I need to get my Canadian asylum application in order.
