At the dawn of the Trump era, weeks before the 2016 election, a conservative writer chided the media as it grappled with how to defeat the outsized Republican candidate. Salena Zito wrote in the Atlantic – as the title of her buzzy part had it – that reporters should start “taking Trump seriously, not literally.”
That’s what Donald Trump’s supporters did, she said: unlike journalists, his voters believed he was a serious candidate who would get elected, and they didn’t believe he would do the things he talked about, the things he would do. thus infuriating the experts who took him literally. Her observation seemed prescient and suggested why Trump fans didn’t mind when, as president, he failed to build a 2,000-mile border wall, make Mexico pay for it or lock up Hillary Clinton.
Now we know that both Zito and the media were wrong: Trump should be taken seriously And literal.
Trump is outdoing himself in the final weeks of the 2024 campaign, issuing threats and spreading conspiracies. As president he has shown what he is capable of, not least by separating migrant families and provoking an uprising. Dozens of former advisers have told us he committed other dangerous, even illegal, acts, including order troops into the streets, authorized to shoot demonstrators in the legs – but because of the resistance of the aides.
Read more: Trump escalates his anti-democratic rhetoric. It’s time to listen
Such resistance is unlikely to come from sycophants that a re-elected Trump would appoint. That’s what he tells us. At the Detroit Economic Club last week, Trump recognized that as a political novice in the White House, he was dependent on staffers who were often unwilling to fulfill his wishes. “I know the game a little better now,” he warned.
That makes his comments Sunday on Fox News about militarily fighting “the enemy from within” — that is, the Democrats — all the more chilling. Trump told interviewer Maria Bartiromo that he is not worried about the chaos on election day from his supporters or foreigners, but from ‘radical left-wing lunatics’. Don’t be afraid, he said: “I think it should be handled very easily by, if necessary, the National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military.”
Read more: Calmes: The GOP assault on election integrity has already begun
Fortunately, Trump will not be president on Election Day. Still does, like former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said on CNN“I think we have to take those words seriously.” It was Esper who had to deal with Trump’s desire to shoot into the crowd during racial justice protests in 2020. “I’ve experienced that,” Esper said. Trump’s “tendency is to use the military in these situations.”
On Fox, Trump responded in a similar fashion when Bartiromo asked authoritatively how he would deal with “the bureaucrats who undermine you” in a second term. Are answer: “We have the enemy from without and then we have the enemy from within. And the enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia and all these countries.”
He cited one example: the man he childishly calls Adam “Shifty” Schiff, the Burbank congressman who spearheaded the impeachment proceedings against Trump and his committee on January 6 and who is confident he will be California’s next senator will be elected, just like Trump himself. said. “A total sleazebag,” Trump lied.
Read more: Calmes: When Trump talks about “bad genes” and “racehorse theory,” he’s telling us who he is
To be sure, Trump’s most zealous and unstable loyalists take him both seriously and literally. More than 200 defendants on January 6 testified that they did obey Trump’s orders when they came to Washington and attacked the Capitol. Such misplaced loyalty is what fuels fears of trouble next month if Trump loses the election, or even if he just grumbles about the way it went.
It wouldn’t be surprising if Trump’s pesky namecheck revived death threats against Schiff, yet another reason to take the man seriously and literally. The long list of his ‘enemies’ who have had to receive security includes VIPs like former Republican Rep. Liz ChenejUtah Senator Mitt Romney and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley (Trump once said the retired general should be executed for treason), and average Americans like 2020 election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss in Georgia. “How bad,” Freeman cried said in federal court over Trump’s defamation.
After Trump lied about FEMA ignoring the states ravaged by Hurricanes Helene and Milton and wasting money on migrants, an armed North Carolina man was arrested Saturday for allegedly threatening government disaster workers. First responders were sent out of one province amid unconfirmed reports of “trucks full of armed militias.” And Trump’s dark, dystopian lies about immigrants ruining Springfield, Ohio; Charleroi, PA; and Aurora, Colo., have drawn attention to each of them neo-Nazis And white supremacists.
Read more: Calmes: Donald Trump is turning on a firehose of lies as the election approaches. It matters
He continues the exhortation. In Aurora on Friday, Trump lied that Vice President Kamala Harris has “imported an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the Third World” and “splendidly resettled them in your community to prey on innocent American citizens.” He has vowed to use his war powers to deport millions. “Getting them out will be a bloody story,” Trump said said last month in Mosinee, Wis.
Believe him.
Yet Trump’s normie supporters don’t do that. Like New York Times story about Trump’s appearance at the Detroit Economic Club began: “A lot of people are happy to vote for him because they simply don’t believe he will do many of the things he says he will do.” One businessman explained away Trump’s recent issue phone conversation for ‘one really violent day’ when police would tackle property crimes as ‘just a healthy bite’.
That’s what Republicans have been saying since January 6 about Trump’s lies about election fraud (despite their initial condemnations) and his summons to the Capitol (“Be there, it will be wild!”) and much more.
Deliberate delusions about what Trump has done and what he might do if re-elected – as he continues to promise loudly and proudly – is idiocy in 2024.
Seriously and literally.
@jackiekcalmes
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
