Trump's Carnival of Horribles

We don’t fear him, but the darkness he unleashes

With a little more than a week to go before Election Day, Donald Trump began his run toward the wire with a festival of foreboding at Madison Square Garden, Sunday. To put it bluntly, he and his allies tried to scare the bejusus out of us with racist, fearmongering rants. We should be scared.

Now much has been said about the “Commedian” and his “jokes” about Puerto Rico, etc. I won’t spend much time on that. There was so much more.

While others called Kamala Harris the “antichrist” and Democrats “Jew haters and low lives” Trump took it upon himself to whip the crowd into a frenzy with warnings of political opponents who represent an “enemy within” and attacks on immigrants and asylum-seekers as if they are all violent invaders.

  “The United States is now an occupied country, but it will soon be an occupied country no longer,” he said. “…on Nov. 5, 2024, nine days from now, it will be Liberation Day in America.”

As more than 25,000 people jumped, screamed, and cheered Trump’s promise to forcibly deport millions of people, I found myself thinking that the massive event had all the hallmarks of a ultra-nationalist fascist rally. I also concluded that if he’s elected, he’s really going to carry out mass deportations. In fact, I believe he will try to do everything he has said he will do.

On immigration Trump has said that he would use the National Guard to round-up, hold and then deport millions of undocumented immigrants. The overwhelming majority of these people lead peaceful, productive lives, contributing far more than they take from our country. They work hard. They pay taxes. Their American-born children are full citizens.

Trump’s deportation plan, as he and his aides have described it, would require identifying, investigating, apprehending and incarcerating well over 10 million people. His key immigration advisor Stephen Miller has envisioned military-run camps along the border with Mexico where people ripped from their families and communities would wait for a grotesque bureaucracy to determine where they would be sent, and when.

You may take comfort in the fact that Trump wanted mass deportations when he was president, but was unable to overcome legal challenges, budget restraints, and resistance at the state and local levels. This time around, his team, wiser in the ways of government, will be able to find the money they’ll need to fulfill Trump’s promise and they can rely on his hand-picked Supreme Court to give him permission to act.

As Trump threatens  immigrants, he has similar ideas about the “very bad” Americans who oppose him politically. At various times Trump has said the  very bad people include political critics (like me), journalists, government officials, and activists. In short, he has been talking about people who merely oppose him and his ideas. Here again he has mused about using the military to go after these supposed enemies.

Trump has a well-established penchant for violence. For proof just look at how he organized, inflamed, and dispatched the violent mob that seized the Capitol on January 6, 2021 in order to stop certification of Joe Biden’s election. If you don’t think Trump will use military assets against American citizen, remember that in 2020 he gave serious consideration to using troops against Black Lives Matter protesters. Four years later, a more unhinged and radical Trump is far more likely to indulge his worst instincts and his aides will help him do it.

When he talks about how vigilantes could be helpful against crime, I take him at his word. When he says he will apply political tests to determine where federal money will be spent on education or disaster relief, I believe him. And I know that he would impose massive, trade-crippling tariffs just to show he’s a tough guy.  

The point is that while Trump lies reflexively, he always tells the truth about his own plans for power. He believes that he can scare Americans into following him. I’m scared he will succeed.  Aren’t you?