A former Democratic strategist has accused Donald Trump of seeking to emulate the rhetoric and sentiments of the Third Reich.
On Sunday, MSNBC anchor Jen Psaki quizzed political consultant James Carville on why he was advising the Kamala Harris campaign to go back to their messaging that the Republican presidential candidate is “scary” following a slump in the success of Tim Walz’s trademark “weird” attacks against the Trump camp.
“I did not realize when I said that that he would actually go on television and say, I’m going to use the military to round up my political enemies,” Carville responded. “When I said that, I didn’t know that he was going to schedule a rally at Madison Square Garden to mimic the Nazi rally of 10th February 1939.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Carville was referring to the Trump campaign’s recent announcement that it would hold a rally on Oct 27, just under a week before November’s presidential vote, at MSG. The same venue hosted a 20,000-strong pro-Hitler rally, organized by Nazi organization the German American Bund, on Feb. 20, 1939. It featured portraits of George Washington surrounded by swastikas.
In the midst of Democratic outcry over the venue choice, leading Republican figures have shot back at perceived similarities between the events, with New York Senator Rob Ortt suggesting any criticism represents “not only a disgusting comparison” but also “a gross escalation of the dangerous rhetoric in the wake of two direct attempts on President Donald Trump’s life.”
Carville, however, remained resolute in his warnings on Sunday afternoon. “How about looking at American history for one time and see what can happen here. And they’re telling you we’re not making this up,” he said.
“They have promised military round ups. They’ve promised the gates of hell will reign on their enemies,” he added, in an apparent nod toward perceived similarities between Trump’s rhetoric and that of Nazi leaders. “They are telling you they’re doing all of this. Pay attention to them right now, please. They’re telling you.”
The furore over Trump’s venue choice so close to election day also follows just a week after he was accused of pushing a white supremacist agenda with his recent conjecture—drawing on widely-debunked pseudoscientific claims of a racial basis for violent behavior—that immigrants who commit murder in the U.S. do so because “it’s in their genes.”
