Jimmy Carter based his campaign for president on the idea that America deserves “a government as good as its people.”
That notion faces its gravest possible test in the 2024 election. Donald Trump, seen as a likely winner in some polls, no longer bothers to conceal his intent to be a dictator — or his contempt for the norms of democracy.
By rounding up and expelling every undocumented immigrant — more than 10 million people — he would build an enormous network of concentration camps. If Congress won’t approve, he’ll strip the money from the Pentagon’s budget. As with his border wall, he would count on Congress lacking the guts to stop him.
Trump would also find a way to purge the government of every civil service official who might restrain him and prostitute the Justice Department to exact retribution on President Joe Biden, his family and everyone else on his burgeoning enemies list.
Listen to his words
It’s not just the ruthless conduct this former president promises that invites comparisons to historic dictators such as Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Fidel Castro.
Trump refers to immigrants, and other perceived enemies, as “vermin.” That’s how Hitler attacked the Jews. It recalls Castro attacking those who fled the island after his bloody revolution as “gusanos” — worms.
Trump has repeatedly accused immigrants of “poisoning the blood of our country.” That recalls what Hitler wrote in “Mein Kampf”: “All the great civilizations of the past became decadent because the originally creative race died out, as a result of contamination of the blood.”
The term “poisoning the blood” is heavy with horror. It echoes the “blood and soil” chant heard from Nazi demonstrators at Charlottesville in 2017, when Trump said there were “fine people” on both sides.
Racist, dangerous and vile
It is indisputably racist, unforgivably dangerous, and indefensibly vile.
Trump has never directly denied the revelation by his first wife, Ivana Trump, that he kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside. To Gen. John Kelly, a chief of staff he dismissed, Trump praised how German generals were loyal to Hitler, which ignored the fact that some of them tried to kill him.
He obviously took to heart and has practiced Hitler’s observation that the bigger the lie, the more people will believe it.
In its full context, here is how Trump’s Veterans Day speech evoked hatred:
“We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within our country that lie and cheat and steal on elections. They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American dream. The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within. Because if you have a capable, competent, smart, tough leader, Russia, China, North Korea — they’re not going to want to play with us.”
The real threat from within
Those weren’t slips of the tongue. He repeated most of it on his social media site, Truth Social.
Trump was right about one thing: The threat from within is more dangerous, but that threat is Trump himself.
To disbelieve what he threatens to do is to forget that when tyrants make threats and talk like tyrants, we ought to believe them. To exploit people’s fears and prejudices is typical of a tyrant. To claim he’s being persecuted projects what he would do to others.
The tyrannical Trump refuses to accept his 2020 election defeat, tried to intimidate his vice president into overturning Biden’s electoral count, and incited a mob to attack the Capitol to prevent the certification of Biden’s victory. There was no precedent in our history for any of that lawless conduct. Every other defeated presidential candidate had accepted the outcome.
The more Trump is criticized, the more he likes it. The more he’s indicted, the more he can wheedle pity from voters who seem to adore him. That, too, augurs tyranny.
So does his torrent of slander against most of the judges and all of the prosecutors in the four criminal cases against him. Disrespect for the courts, as a prelude to destroying their independence, is a hallmark of dictatorships.
In an about face, Trump demands that his Washington trial on election conspiracy charges be televised. Federal court rules prohibit cameras in court. This editorial board agrees that federal proceedings should be televised — especially Trump’s. But it’s clear from his contempt for the justice system that to televise his trial would turn it into a circus.
It’s heartbreaking and infuriating that so many Americans still support Trump, despite the cruelty, despotism and revenge he openly craves to inflict on our nation, and despite his personal immorality and vulgarity.
America is a nation of immigrants. All but some 2% of us who are Native Americans are immigrants or the descendants of immigrants, most of whom came when the borders were open and there were no racist quotas. They built a great country, and it’s still a great country — no matter who pretends it isn’t.
Trump does not believe in the goodness of the American people. He believes only in himself. He appeals to the worst there is in America. He is a mortal danger to our republic.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writer Martin Dyckman and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.