It’s Official: With “Vermin,” Trump Is Now Using Straight-up Nazi Talk He’s telling us what he will do to his political enemies if he’s president again. Is anyone listening?
I feel pretty safe in saying that we can now stop giving him the benefit of that particular doubt. His use—twice; once on social media, and then repeated in a speech—of the word “vermin” to describe his political enemies cannot be an accident. That’s an unusual word choice. It’s not a smear that one just grabs out of the air. And it appears in history chiefly in one context, and one context only.
One thing to keep in mind is to think about what kind of person actually participates in polls, and how that type of person will tend to lean politically (hint, old retired people)
That being said, fascism has happened continuously all throughout history for a reason. people like it when they think it’s on “their side”. A lot of conservative voters genuinely think America would be a better place if the democratic party was forcibly eliminated, and so they’re not only fine with what Trump is saying, they’re enthusiastic about it.
Combine the human tendency for populism with decades of conditioning from outlets like Fox News that conservatives are the only “real Americans” and that the “radical left” is hell bent on destroying their lives, raping babies, and turning their sons into daughters, and you have a large population of voters who genuinely think that democracy is bad if it means “the other side” gets to win.
Many Fascist movements start out with enthusiastic support from at least a large chunk of their population (Hitler was elected), by the time people realize that fascism only ever actually benefits those at the top, it’s too late