Darker rhetoric

Trump turns to darker rhetoric as voting begins

Danielle Kurtzleben

At a pair of weekend speeches, former President Donald Trump continued to escalate the insults, threats and lies that have become hallmarks of his political campaigns.

At a speech in Erie, Pennsylvania, Trump suggested that police violence could deter crime.

Trump falsely claimed that police in California, Harris’ home state, do not charge people for shoplifting merchandise valued under $950. Trump then said police should be allowed to be “rough” on criminals to send a message.

“One rough hour, and I mean real rough, the word will get out, and it will end immediately. End immediately. You know? It’ll end immediately,” he repeated.

He immediately turned to insulting President Biden and Democratic nominee for president, Vice President Harris.

“Crooked Joe Biden became mentally impaired. Sad. But Lyin’ Kamala Harris – honestly, I believe she was born that way,” he said, mispronouncing Harris’ first name. “There’s something wrong with Kamala, and I just don’t know what it is, but there is definitely something missing. And you know what? Everybody knows it.”

That’s an insult he had used earlier in the weekend, in a rally in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.

“Joe Biden became mentally impaired. Kamala was born that way,” he told the crowd. “She was born that way. And if you think about it, only a mentally disabled person could have allowed this to happen to our country,” he said, in reference to undocumented immigrants entering the country.

The new insults and threats come as voting has begun in some parts of Pennsylvania, kicking off what is thus far a tight presidential race. Trump and Harris are deadlocked in that state and other swing states. In that environment, Trump has chosen to maintain his harsh rhetoric, rather than to soften in an attempt to win over potentially swayable undecided voters.

In his Pennsylvania speech, Trump told the crowd to make sure their friends who might be open to him get out and vote.

“We also need you to find as many other new voters as you can. So go get them,” he said. “We have some voters – they’re for us, but they never voted. And they’re gonna want to vote. Just a little bit prodding, they’ll come out, and they’ll vote.”

That may be the winning strategy for a candidate who shows little interest in moderating either his policies or his authoritarian rhetoric. While many moderate voters may be firmly decided against him, there are tens of millions of nonvoters, some of whom are presumably sympathetic to Trump.

Trump regularly repeats the lie that he won the election in 2020 and he did the same over the weekend, sowing distrust in America’s election system just weeks out from the final day of voting on Election Day. He told the Erie crowd that Democrats “cheat in this state, especially in Philadelphia,” a heavily Democratic city, despite providing no evidence.

“We have to have a landslide because they cheat so damn much,” he later said, and then added, “If we win, when we win, we’re going to prosecute people that cheat on this election. And if we can, we’ll go back to the last one, too, if we’re allowed.”

From speech to speech, Trump repeats the same ideas, but also alters – and often amplifies – them over time. For example, prior to this weekend, he had several times referred to Harris as unintelligent. This weekend, he decided to cast her as mentally disabled.

An earlier American electorate may have found these kinds of statements disqualifying, but Trump has made them regular fixtures over nine years of campaigning.

From insulting John McCain for being a prisoner of war to the infamous Access Hollywood tape to calling his opponent “mentally impaired,” voters have regularly heard him say outrageous things, but his support among his base and with Republican voters as a whole has not changed substantially.