Politico reporter Myah Ward sat down with The New Republic's Greg Sargent this week to discuss what she describes as former President Donald Trump's "escalating" rhetoric that demonizes both undocumented immigrants and domestic political opponents.
Sargent started the interview by playing a clip from Trump on Fox News in which he muses about using the military against what he describes as "the enemy within."
Sargent then asked Ward if this means Trump wants to use the military against domestic political rivals.
"Yes," she replied. "It’s interesting because it’s hard to know exactly when he started using this 'enemy from within' rhetoric. I’m sure we could track it down if we went through all of these rallies. It’s definitely been a while because we do have to remember that he started using phrases like vermin to talk about his political opponents last year. But to your point, he is getting more blatant about what he’s talking about here, what he wants to do."
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Later in the conversation, she cited conversations she had with New York University historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who for decades has studied the rhetoric used by authoritarian regimes.
"[Ben-Ghiat] was talking about how this 'enemy from within' rhetoric is what scares her the most because from where she sits and what she studies, it is fascist rhetoric," she said. "It is reminiscent of military dictatorships — the one she mentioned in our conversation was Pinochet, who was the dictator of Chile — and this idea that they turn the military on the people because the enemy is within. Then just a few days after I speak with her, he’s not only talking about an 'enemy from within' at his rally, he takes it a step further in that Fox News interview."
Ward also said that, even though Trump has regularly demonized immigrants, he's cranked the dial up even further in recent campaign rallies than he ever did in 2016.
"The way he talks about this is really escalating," she said. "It’s different than 2016. Even in his opening speech for launching his campaign, he talked about immigrants from Mexico — and we often heard him describe these people as 'rapists' and 'criminals' — but now he’s getting very specific. He talks in this language of saying, 'They’re going to cut your throat, they are conquering and taking over cities. They’re taking over housing. They’re taking over your schools.'"
