A spokesperson for Donald Trump’s campaign called critics of the former president’s use of the label “vermin” to refer to his political opponents as “snowflakes” whose “entire existence will be crushed” if Trump wins the presidency in 2024. In the typically cheery Veterans Day speech, parts of which he also posted on social media, Trump also ranted about “Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs” who he thought were trying to “destroy” America. Some historians called that rhetoric reminiscent of fascist dictators like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini; Timothy Naftali, a research scholar at Columbia University, told The Washington Post, “When you dehumanize an opponent, you strip them of their constitutional rights to participate securely in a democracy because you’re saying they’re not human.” But Trump flack Steven Cheung didn’t see the issue, saying that anyone who took issue with the remarks was “suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome” and “their entire existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.”
