By Ken W. White / Herald Forum
Recently, the twice impeached, ex-president, Donald Trump, spoke at a radical conservative hatefest and warned: “At the ballot box, they will get a reckoning, like they haven’t even imagined before.”
Who are “they”?
Well, prosecutors, of course, and court clerks, lawyers, judges, jurors, Joe Biden, New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg (whom Trump called a “danger to our country, and should be removed immediately”), and anyone against Trump and for democracy.
In other words, “they” is me. And maybe you.
Why? In my case, I publicly don’t support Trump, even back when he still had his daddy’s money to burn and appeared less political. And I never have and never would vote for him. It does not even cross my mind for a nanosecond.
“They” is me because I take a public stand in support of our democracy, and offer modicums of thought against Trump on the internet and in this newspaper.
“They” is anyone who questions Trump. He calls those Americans who do, like me and maybe you, “vermin.” And any dictator knows that before you physically kill someone, you must think them to death. Dehumanize them. Make them objects of derision. Make “they” the “other.”
Trump says “they” will face a reckoning some time in the future and be punished for what “they” have done.
Trump threatens to weaponize the FBI and the Justice Department against political opponents, to revoke the licenses of broadcast news for reporting facts such as his past secretary of state calling him a “moron,” and to eliminate uncooperative civil servants. Are they “vermin?”
The Soviet Union’s Josef Stalin threatened opponents like rebellious Ukrainians and eventually the entire nation. The phrase, “enemy of the people,” is indelibly linked to Stalin. The term in Russian is “vrag naroda,” which means death for opponents and state persecution of their family.
Historian Timothy D. Snyder writes that Stalin killed about 6 million, which rises to 9 million if deaths resulting from Soviet policies are taken into account.
Trump also used the term “enemy of the people” against prominent American media organizations and others. And as we have learned in current court cases, family members of Trump’s critics are not beyond his threats.
“No. No. Other than day one,” Trump said when asked to deny he would become a “dictator” if he wins the November election.
It only takes one day.
American author Sinclair Lewis wrote a novel, “It Can’t Happen Here,” about a dictator coming to power in the United States. Lewis may have had more of a Hitlerian model in mind than a Stalinist one, but the elimination of checks and balances — and facts — in our democracy is dangerously similar.
Lewis’s novel was a warning to me, and maybe to you: Take Trump’s threats seriously.
Ken W. White lives in Arlington.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
