Donald Trump is known for his tasteless statements. But what the ex-president has been saying lately leaves even long-time experts speechless.
Donald Trump has never been squeamish when it comes to his rhetoric. The former US president uses the power of words for his own benefit and knows no moral boundaries. When he thinks it will benefit him, he verbally destroys his opponents, regardless of etiquette or political custom. His followers celebrate him for exactly that.
Now the 77-year-old offered another example of his penchant for hate speech. In an interview with the right-wing conservative Right Side Broadcasting Network, the Republican presidential candidate spoke in detail about the primaries taking place in several US states on Tuesday, Super Tuesday. He also talked about migrants.
“These are bad people, often they come straight from prison or from psychiatric institutions, from the loony bin,” Trump said of those immigrants who enter the United States illegally. “You know, mentally disturbed people, that ‘silence of the lambs’ stuff.”
Trump abuses film psychopaths for his agitation
“Hannibal Lecter, does anyone here know Hannibal Lecter?” he added after laughter erupted from the audience. The interview took place in front of a select audience at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida. “We don’t want these people in our country,” said Trump.
Hannibal Lecter is the protagonist of the Oscar-winning thriller “The Silence of the Lambs” from 1991. British actor Anthony Hopkins plays the serial killer and serious psychopath who imprisons his numerous victims, tortures them, and finally kills them in a brutal way and eats them.
It is not the first time that Trump has misused the film for his campaign of abuse against minorities. He had already made a similar comparison in connection with immigrants at CPAC, the annual conference of extremely conservative Republicans.
Trump says: “I am your retaliation”
Last year he told supporters in New Hampshire that migrants were “poisoning the blood of our nation,” making a direct reference to the rhetoric of National Socialism. Experts view Trump’s rhetoric with great concern. They are observing the former US president increasingly drifting into authoritarian and autocratic ways of speaking.
“I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged, I am retribution. I am your vengeance,” Trump said during his speech at CPAC 2023. Experts like law professor Timothy J. Heaphy warn that this form of verbal violence could also turn into actual violence. Just as it very likely happened with the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Back then, too, a speech by Trump may have played a decisive role in the outbreak of violence in Washington’s government district.
“Rhetoric like this [von Trump] does not go without consequences,” Heaphy told the New York Times. “People we interviewed as part of the Jan. 6 investigation told us that they went to the Capitol because politicians and the president told them to. Politicians think that when they say certain things it is just talk. But people take it at face value.”
