JD Vance attacked Democrats earlier this week for calling Donald Trump a âthreat to democracyâ after an apparent second assassination attempt on his life Sunday.
The Republican vice presidential candidateâs remarks Monday came the same day the former president blamed President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harrisâ ârhetoricâ as the reason he had been âshot at.â
Trumpâs running mate even went so far as to suggest the lack of assassination attempts on Harrisâ life shows Democratic rhetoric has been more dangerous and warned that calling an election opponent âfascistâ could lead to violence.
âWe can debate one another, but we cannot tell the American people that one candidate is a fascist and that, if heâs elected, it is going to be the end of American democracy,â said the Ohio senator.
What he forgot to mention is that Trump has repeatedly called his opponents just that, often in extravagant broadsides in which heâs called Harris a âMarxistâ to boot. During Tuesdayâs edition of CNN NewsNight, host Abby Phillip cut to a compilation of Trump doing exactly what Vance said needed to stop, over and over again.
âThis is communist, this is Marxist, this is fascist,â Trump says in one clip of his Democrat opponents. âSheâs a Marxist, sheâs a fascist,â he says of Harris in another.
Trump paradoxically states in one of the clips CNN pulled that, if Harris wins, Americans âwill be living in a full-blown banana republic ruled by an anarchy and a tyranny.â
Have Democrats called Trump a threat? Yes. On CBS Sunday Morning in August, Biden called Trump a âgenuine danger to American security,â Harris has repeatedly called him âa threat to our democracy,â and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, asked at a July 27 appearance âAre they a threat to democracy? Yes. Are they going to take our rights away? Yes.â At the same appearance, Walz even alluded to Republicans as âfascistsâ who âdepend on fear.
So, if Vanceâs claim that politicians need to âtone down the rhetoricâ is to be heeded, he may need to speak to his running mate, who has used the very talking points he has condemned, for months and more frequently than his opponents.