The Normalizing of Donald J. Trump

We are sleepwalking towards authoritarianism.

Brian Klaas, Associate Professor of Global Politics, University College London

In the last eight years, Donald Trump has made speeches and pronouncements that are shocking and frequently bald-faced lies. They don’t need to be repeated because most of us have heard them ad nauseam. However, the one last Saturday bears repeating: “We will root out Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and radical left-wings thugs that live like vermin in the confines of this country”

The word vermin was used by Fascist leaders of the 1930s, Benito Mussolini of Italy and Adolf Hitler of Germany, to describe Jewish people. In films, Jews were compared to rats. The words helped stoke a hatred of the Jewish people that led to the Holocaust.

Trump’s use of the word vermin has crossed perhaps the last line of his embrace of fascism and an indicator of his goals should he be elected president. He has staked his case for re-election by going after his perceived enemies as an autocratic dictator would.

The problem, of course, over the last eight years is that no matter what Trump says or does, the media and an apathetic nation normalize it — “Well, it’s just Donald Trump. He is doing it for the show. He is not a politician.” Every excuse de-emphasizes the gravity of this behavior from a morally repugnant person.

While some in the media have called out Trump consistently, far too many storylines like this one from CNN flash on the internet: “Donald Trump teases he will lock up his enemies if elected.” Are we to consider Trump in a humorous and light-hearted way? There is nothing funny about a presidential candidate who wants to do away with our democracy.

Time and time again, the media cannot resist giving Trump air time to spew his hate-filled, un-American rhetoric. The constant coverage causes many — even those who don’t agree with him — to become numb and accept what was once unforgivingly unacceptable. Trump’s followers consider him a cult hero and laugh at his crudeness because it somehow empowers them. We are “sleepwalking towards fascism” if we do not reject his verbiage and his actions consistently.

Robert Maynard Hutchins, a great American educator, wrote, “The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.” The speed has accelerated. The existential threat of Trump is all too real. The Republicans in Congress, his enablers, are contributing to that acceleration toward fascism.

The question is when will we awaken to preserve our democracy? That question needs an answer sooner than later.