Donald Trump and his campaign tried to clarify that when he said there will be a “bloodbath” if he loses the election, he was referring to the auto industry and a tariff war with China. This “clarification” does not erase his history of xenophobic, incendiary, and violent rhetoric.
The Spanish saying “crea fama y acuéstate a dormir” [loosely translated as ‘your reputation will follow you everywhere’] certainly applies to Trump, who has risen to his level in politics by maligning others, and certainly doesn’t seem capable of change. Therefore, it’s no surprise he would say something like this. Moreover, the speech in Ohio where he pronounced the phrase was a dark and fatalistic one, where he referred to immigrants as “animals” and declared that if he loses the election, democracy will end. “If we don’t win this election, I don’t think you’re going to have another election in this country,” Trump said.
Furthermore, he called the convicts involved in the bloody attempted coup d’etat on January 6, 2021—the same one we all witnessed live and in full color, but which Trump and his fanatics insist was a product of our collective imagination —“hostages” and “unbelievable patriots,”
In fact, the attack on the Capitol, instigated by Trump with the lie that the 2020 election Joe Biden won was “stolen” from him, was itself a bloodbath. And the fear of what could occur if Trump loses this election persists.
In his speech, Trump redoubled his attacks against immigrants. “I don’t know if you call them people. In some cases, they’re not people, in my opinion … they are animals.” he affirmed. Moreover, he has intensified the rhetoric that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the country, in the style of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.
Anyone who doesn’t take Trump’s threats and his virulent language against immigrants seriously is committing a grave error. He has already demonstrated, through his actions, the extremes to which he can go in four years of presidency and later, after losing re-election, attempting to steal it by intimidating public officials and demanding that his ex-Vice President, Mike Pence, avoid certifying Biden’s win. It was Pence’s refusal that gave way to the assault on the Capitol.
There is a long list of extremist policies against immigrants, from the so-called Muslim ban to the separation of families at the border and losing track of children who have not been returned to their parents. These and other measures were stopped in the courts, but Trump and his team have had sufficient time to refine the mechanisms that permit them to revive and implement them, as well as initiate others, like his promise of detention camps and mass deportations.
But anyone who thinks that, if they are not an immigrant, they have nothing to fear in a potential Trump return to the White House, is also committing a grave error. Those who think his attacks will be limited only to undocumented people underestimate him. We’re talking about a person who, as president, treated the Justice Department as if it was his personal legal team. An individual who is facing charges stemming from four criminal cases and is looking to exact vengeance on anyone who, he says, “unjustly persecuted” him.
So, it would not be surprising if, in a second term, Trump looks for mechanisms to at least intimidate political opponents, the media, and even organizations and institutions he finds uncomfortable. That is the way the autocrats Trump admirers act.
If not, look at his “takeover” of the Republican National Committee (RNC) before even being officially nominated, placing relatives and allies who promote his ideas about “electoral fraud” there.
With or without clarification, Trump already incited a bloodbath on January 6, 2021. Nothing has changed. To the contrary, he acts even more emboldened. His strategy continues to focus on demonizing immigrants to rile up his base and those who feel upset by the situation at the border. But his threat goes even beyond that. He is already invoking “electoral fraud” to undermine confidence in the system, and our very democracy may suffer the consequences.
The original Spanish version is here.
