Harris campaign starts to pivot to foreground Trump's violent threats against political opponents
Both VP Harris and Gov. Walz warned Americans that Trump considers anyone who doesn't support him to be "an enemy of the country" — and not a moment too soon
This piece was originally published at The Hot Screen.
Donald Trump has long ranted about the need to target for punishment those he labels as domestic enemies, whether through jail or violence, but such rhetoric has been escalating as November 5 draws nearer. More than almost anything else coming from the GOP ticket, such threats are completely disqualifying, rendering Trump not simply unfit for office but an active menace to the safety and security of the American people. You cannot claim to be a candidate for office in a democracy if one of your strategies is to physically threaten your political opponents; even more so when such threats are intended to scare Americans from casting votes against you, as Trump’s efforts to project an aura of physical menace are surely intended.
In the past few days, this language has at long last spurred the Harris campaign to begin drawing attention to it in a more concerted way. At a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, Harris went so far as to play a video reel of various times Trump has referred to “enemies from within,” spoken of the need for extreme police violence to end crime, and urged that the military be sent against unspecified “radical left lunatics.” From there, Harris pressed the attack, asserting that Trump considers anyone who does not support him to be “an enemy of our country,” and suggesting that journalists, honest election officials, and judges who follow the law could be targeted by the military under a Trump presidency. She also (rightly) characterized Trump as “increasingly unstable and unhinged.”
In parallel remarks at a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, VP candidate Tim Walz cited Trump’s comments as well, but arguably went a step further in his commentary. After emphasizing that Trump’s threats are aimed at anyone who doesn’t support him, he told the audience that Trump is “talking about you” when he says that he will send the military against “the enemy within.” Walz noted that Trumps words made Walz “sick to my stomach,” and characterized them as “un-American.” And in a remarkable line, he said that, “We’ll let the lawyers decide if what he said was treason, but what I know is it’s a call for violence.” Walz also noted retired General Mark Milley’s reported statement that Trump is a fascist, and told the audience that they shouldn’t be afraid to say this.
I’ve quoted both Harris and Walz somewhat at length because I believe that the way they’re talking about Trump is exactly what is needed, and not a moment too soon. Both made the essential point: Donald Trump’s threats of violence are a threat against every American who doesn’t support him. In Trump’s deranged worldview, you are either his supporter or his enemy. And though both the former president and VP candidate J.D. Vance have been escalating their incitement of violence against immigrants in the last few months, Trump’s recent run of comments makes it clear that immigrants are just the start of the retribution he wants to visit upon the country. It’s essential that the Democratic ticket press this basic point home: the American majority that opposes Trump will be in MAGA’s crosshairs should Trump regain power, in unpredictable but dire ways given Trump’s increasing lunacy and stated bloodlust.
If you watch Walz’s comments in particular, you see a couple specific ideas that Democrats urgently need to keep conveying. First, Walz speaks with a palpable sense of anger at Trump’s threats. He’s righteously pissed off. More than this — he’s basically encouraging his listeners to get pissed off, too. I’ve long encouraged Democratic politicians not to shy away from arousing anger among voters when this emotion is appropriate and productive. Such is the case here. Anger is the right response when a would-be dictator threatens to jail or harm you and your loved ones if you don’t vote for him. And anger is doubly appropriate when the would-be dictator prefers that you feel fear and helplessness in response to his threats. Anger can cut through the psychological games that Trump is trying to play, and help us collectively to arrive at a point of resolve, defiance, and indomitability. This is the poise we need in order to win this election and to face down the nearly-inevitable insurrection that Trump will mount to try to overturn the election results.
Related to this is Walz’s willingness to highlight General Milley’s “fascist” comment and to encourage people to speak the truth about Trump. Weeks out from November 5, we are at a point where we can’t have the Democrats beating around the bush as to the stakes of the election or the nature of the threat we face. Whether or not you think it’s effective to use the “fascist” terminology, Democrats need to convey Trump’s determinedly fascistic tactics and goals: his embrace of violence as a political tactic, his demonization of minorities as threats and accompanying vows to purify the nation, his establishment of a cult of personality that brooks no dissent. While darker periods of American history have seen all of these elements, it is right and necessary for Democrats to present these aspects of Trumpism as fundamentally alien and outrageous to commonly-held ideas of American freedom, democracy, and society.
In this vein, it is also notable that Walz suggested that Trump’s threatened action may constitute “treason.” Democrats have been deeply cautious in using this word to describe Trump’s actions, likely in part because the GOP has so abused and overused this term over the last few decades to disparage Democrats. But if threatening to unleash the American military against political opponents is not treason, then it is really hard to say that anything is. It is a sign of the darkness of our times that Democrats are in need of dusting off this term, but we cannot fully describe our political reality unless we use the right words to do so.
You can see the effectiveness of Harris and Walz’s truth-telling in the response of other GOP politicians who basically can’t figure out how to defend Trump’s comments. On CNN, Jake Tapper’s interview of Virginia Governor Glen Youngkin was particularly telling — when pressed on Trump’s violent threats against Americans, Youngkin denied that Trump had said such things even though Tapper had literally played him Trump’s words. This gets to a broader point that we simply can’t overstate: Trump has said things that are simply indefensible. He has been honing this message for months if not years, and there is ample evidence that he sees non-supporters as enemies to be dealt with as he sees fit.
Democrats need to take these threats seriously because they are deeply serious threats. And the need for the Harris campaign to foreground them is all the more important as major media institutions like the New York Times remain mired in deeply misguided and misleading coverage that downplays the sheer horror of Trump’s clearly articulated intentions and violent state of mind. They must do all they can to force the story of Trump’s violent plans for governance into the forefront of campaign coverage. For Americans to take this as seriously as they must, these recent comments by Walz and Harris can’t be one-offs, but the opening salvos of a continuing message that Donald Trump is a personal threat to the lives of individual Americans.
For all the energy Trump and his running mate have put into demonizing immigrants in recent months — for instance, by fomenting violence against Haitian immigrants in Ohio through grotesque lies — Trump’s threats against American citizens demonstrate that the promised round-up of immigrants would be a mere appetizer to the wholesale intimidation and disciplining of an American majority that will forever hold him in contempt. He cannot walk back the long trail of escalating threats he has left behind; the Democrats should flagellate him for this every day through November 5.