How does the rhetoric of the president of the United States differ from the rhetoric of the white supremacist who killed Latinos in El Paso? It doesn’t. A USA Today analysis found that Donald Trump has spewed violent, anti-immigrant rhetoric more than 500 times since 2017, including using the word “invasion” at least 19 times. In his scrawlings, the white supremacist mass shooter who shot and killed 22 people, nearly all Latino, complained about a “Hispanic invasion” of Texas.
“Trump has used the words ‘predator,’ ‘invasion,’ ‘alien,’ ‘killer,’ ‘criminal’ and ‘animal,’” the analysis found, using “the word ‘animal’ 34 times and the word ‘killer’ nearly three dozen times.” He “has used ‘the hell out of our country’ at least 43 times.” All 500 instances were from the more than 60 rallies that Trump has held since his inauguration.
It was at one of these same rallies in May that he chuckled and joked at a supporter’s suggestion to shoot asylum-seekers at the southern border. In any normal circumstance, any decent person would have immediately condemned that. But these are not normal times, and this is not a decent man, and Trump responded, “That’s only in the Panhandle you can get away with that stuff.”
Trump has already incited his supporters to violence. Just months after he announced his presidential campaign by calling Mexicans criminals and rapists, two supporters assaulted a Latino man in Boston, beating him with a pipe and then urinating on him. “Donald Trump was right,” one told police, “all these illegals need to be deported.” The two brothers, Scott and Steven Leader, pleaded guilty to assault and battery, intimidation, and civil rights violations.
What was Trump’s reaction to the assault he inspired? “I will say that people who are following me are very passionate,” he said. Meanwhile, he saves “killer,” “criminal,” and “animal” for the very people he’s inspiring his criminal supporters to attack.
