During a campaign rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, former President Donald Trump, the GOP nominee for president, suggested that the U.S. should have one day of state-sponsored, police-enacted violence.
Trump claimed that such a day was necessary to address supposedly rising crime rates across the country, despite the fact that violent crime is actually decreasing in the U.S. He attributed the nonexistent rise in crime to undocumented people, spewing racist accusations against immigrants and at one point referring to undocumented people as “animals” — rhetoric that many critics have pointed out is blatantly fascist.
Trump claimed that “one real rough, nasty day” of police violence would somehow stop crimes from taking place across the U.S.
“One rough hour — and I mean real rough — the word will get out and it will end immediately, you know? It will end immediately,” Trump added.
Trump’s remarks come just weeks after he knowingly spread racist lies about Haitian residents of Springfield, Ohio, inciting bomb threats and acts of violent harassment against immigrants in the city. His speech represents just the latest instance in which he has expressed a desire to serve as an autocratic leader. (Trump has previously vowed to act as a dictator on his first day in office, and promised to use the Department of Justice to attack his perceived political enemies.)
A spokesperson for Trump has claimed that his recent comments were “clearly…in jest.” In the past, however, Trump’s staff has similarly characterized his disturbing statements as jokes, only for Trump to clarify that he was serious.
In response to Trump’s remarks, some political observers opined that Trump’s proposal was similar to the plot of the 2013 horror movie “The Purge” and its subsequent spin-offs, which depict a dystopian, totalitarian America where residents are allowed to engage in violence one day a year without legal repercussions.
“The Republican candidate for President has come out in favor of the fucking Purge,” The Nation’s justice correspondent Elie Mystal marveled.
“Did Trump watch the Purge or just independently come up with the same idea?” asked political reporter Paul Blest.
“No big deal, just one of the two candidates for President calling for a ‘really violent day’ of nationwide police brutality. Don’t bother covering this as a major story, anyone,” said former Obama presidential speechwriter Dan Cluchey.
Others pointed out that “The Purge” comparison isn’t entirely accurate — in the movie, every American is incentivized to take part in the violence, whereas Trump’s proposal would apply only to police officers and Border Patrol (with perhaps some leeway given his supporters). A more accurate comparison, they said, was to the real-life example of Kristallnacht, a wave of violent, anti-Jewish pogroms in Germany that Nazi leaders encouraged in November of 1938.
“Trump yesterday called for a new Kristallnacht,” Public Notice journalist Aaron Rupar said, sharing video of Trump’s statement.
“I’ve seen this described as ‘The Purge’ which is wrong. That was a movie where the population was set against itself. This is the description of state-sponsored wide-spread violence. It actually happened,” said Jim Stewartson, co-host of podcast Radicalized, referring to Kristallnacht.
Stewartson also described Trump’s speech as being “one of the most dangerous…of the 21st century,” noting that his scapegoating of marginalized populations echoed Nazi calls for pogroms.
Jennifer Mercieca, a professor and historian of American political rhetoric at Texas A&M, said that Trump’s call for state-sponsored violence should not be taken lightly.
“Just like how dictators don’t typically self-limit their dictatorships to ‘only one day,’ when they start a ‘day of violence’ it lasts a lot longer than a day,” Mercieca said, referencing Trump’s past statement about wanting to be a dictator on his first day back in office. “There’s no such thing as a limited, one-day only violent dictatorship. Don’t be fooled.”
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