It’s Official: With “Vermin,” Trump Is Now Using Straight-up Nazi Talk
Michael Tomasky at The New Republic:
To announce that the real enemy is domestic and then to speak of that enemy in subhuman terms is Fascism 101. Especially that particular word.
Tomasky says Trump is “not going to be throwing anybody in the gas chamber,” but:
The Nazis did a lot of things from 1933 to 1941 (when the Final Solution commenced) that would shock Americans today, and Trump and his followers are capable of every one of them: shutting down critical voices in the press; banning books, and even burning some, just to drive the point home; banning opposition organizations or even parties; making political arrests of opponents without telling them the charges; purging university faculties; doing the same with the civil service….
Many Americans would not be shocked by those measures. Many would cheer—until the Republican Gestapo came for them.. And don’t be sure that Trump isn’t going to throw anybody in the gas chamber. Trump is already talking openly about building concentration camps.
Trump invoked “vermin” on the very day that The New York Times broke yet another harrowing story about his second term plans, this time having to do with immigration. “He plans,” the Times reported, “to scour the country for unauthorized immigrants and deport people by the millions per year.” And he wants to build huge—yes—detention camps. There’s much more. And all of this, by the way, appears to have been fed to the paper by his own people, who are obviously proud of it. They want America to know. And just before this, remember, Trump told Univision that he would use the Justice Department and the FBI to go after his political enemies.