Editor’s Notes: i) We have divided Part One of Thomas Gotowka’s essay into three parts. This is Section 2—we will publish Section 3 on Thursday, Sept. 5. Read Section 1 at this link.
ii) This is the opinion of Thomas D. Gotowka.
“Mein Kampf” at the Claremont, NH Rally
In a nearly two-hour rambling speech on Saturday, Nov.11, 2023, Trump addressed a rally crowd in Claremont, NH and promised that “We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”
He accused these groups of doing ‘anything’ “to destroy America and to destroy the American dream;” and he then went on to repeat his old and baseless claims of election fraud.
Trump spoke at length about his criminal indictments. “I am being indicted for you. Never forget, our enemies want to take away my freedom because I will never let them take away your freedom. In the end, they’re not after me, they’re after you; I’m just standing in their way.” He said, “The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within.”
Trump’s dystopian rhetoric has drawn significant criticism and concern from historians and political analysts, who noted the dangerous parallels between Trump’s language and the antisemitic propaganda of Nazi Germany. Historian Jon Meacham said. “To call your opponent ‘vermin,’ to dehumanize them, is to not only open the door but to walk through the door toward the most ghastly kinds of crimes.”
Yale University professor Jason Stanley, author of “How Fascism Works,” said “It doesn’t echo ‘Mein Kampf.’ This is textbook ‘Mein Kampf.'”
Huyen “Steven” Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign, responded with threats to the criticism. Cheung rejected the critics as “’snowflakes’ suffering from ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome, and threatened that their sad, miserable existence would be crushed when Trump returns to the White House.”
In keeping with the rally’s theme, Cheung may have been mirroring Josef Goebbels, chief propagandist for Adolph Hitler’s Nazi Party with his threatening language. Cheung also worked in communications for “The Ultimate Fighting Championship” organization.
In addition, Trump faced outcry from critics after an interview with “The National Pulse,” a right-wing political news publication, when he said that immigrants, who are in the country without authorization, are “poisoning the blood” of America. He also repeated his longstanding claim that terrorists, criminals, and those with mental illness are coming in through the borders. Trump went on to say his criticism is of immigrants from all over the world, including Asia and Africa.
“Birther” Redux at the National Association of Black Journalists Conference
At this July 31 Conference, Trump released a volley of vicious attacks on Kamala Harris, absurdly questioning her Black identity. “She changed her identity from Indian to Black for political gain.” His ridiculous claim is reminiscent of the birther nonsense he unsuccessfully attempted on President Obama in 2011 (see Part 2)
Trump said, “I’ve known her a long time, indirectly, not directly very much; and she was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage;” After being asked whether he thought Harris was only on the Democratic ticket because she was Black, he responded, “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black,” he continued. “So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
To set the record straight, Harris’ mother, born and raised in India, was a biomedical scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, whose work in isolating and characterizing the progesterone receptor gene stimulated advances in breast biology and oncology. Her father, Jamaican-born Donald Harris, was a professor of economics at Stanford University, joining the faculty in 1972, retiring in 1998. He also served as an economic consultant to Jamaica’s government.
Trump bragged that he had been “the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln.” He repeatedly targeted one of the moderators, ABC News’ Rachel Scott, calling her “nasty” for her line of questioning, a word he usually reserves for women.
Harris summarized Trump’s remarks very concisely at a campaign event a few hours after Trump’s appearance at the Conference, and said “It was the same old show.”
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, once a Trump ally, said that Trump is retreating to his “greatest hits” by attacking Vice President Harris on her race; “and as the presidential race gets tighter, he may revert to more personal attacks.”
Burning Bridges in Atlanta — “I just want to find 11,780 votes”
At an Aug. 3 rally in Atlanta, Trump spent 10 minutes ranting about Brian Kemp, Georgia’s popular governor, blaming him for his loss to Biden in the 2020 election, and for not stopping the district attorney from prosecuting him and several associates for his efforts to overturn Georgia’s election results.
Trump was already fuming over Kemp, offended by the Governor’s absence from campaign events and fundraisers, and probably other perceived slights. After all, Trump had “helped him get elected.” Kemp had skipped a fundraiser and a Georgia rally weeks earlier; and his wife, Marty, had told a local television reporter that she planned to write in her husband’s name for president, rather than vote for Trump.
In addition, Kamala Harris had a very successful and enthusiastic rally just a few days before at a packed Georgia State Convocation Center, where she told the crowd “The path to the White House runs right through this state, and you all helped us win in 2020 and we are going to do it again in 2024.” Trump claimed that Harris had an unfair advantage from participating entertainers.
Earlier in the day, Trump took to social media to blast the governor, who he referred to as “Little Brian Kemp. Bad guy;” and former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan for being disloyal to the GOP, after Duncan announced that he was endorsing Harris, despite his party threatening to ban him from running for office as a Republican. Remember when Trump reserved “Little” for Senator Marco Rubio?
Trump continued to falsely claim victory in Georgia, stating that he won the state twice. He also attacked Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who had refused to overturn the 2020 election results. Trump suggested, without evidence, that they were working against him in the 2024 election.
At the rally, Trump said “Your Governor, Brian Kemp, and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, they’re doing everything possible to make 2024 difficult for Republicans to win.”. “What are they doing? I don’t know. They’ve got something in mind, you know, they’ve got a little something in mind. Kemp is very bad for the Republican Party.”
He continued, “They don’t want the vote to be honest. In my opinion, they want us to lose. That’s my opinion. And we can’t let that happen because if we lose Georgia, we lose the whole thing and our country goes to hell.”
Harris did admit that she wants Trump to lose.
Trump also tried to paint Harris as an extreme leftist, attacking her positions on the southern border, guns and public safety.
“She was the worst border czar, she was the worst czar in history,” he said, repetitively referring to an informal and unofficial title. “Kamala’s radical ideas belong in a San Francisco commune filled with far left freaks, but they do not belong in the White House. They do not belong in the United States of America. This November, Georgia is going to tell Kamala that we will not let her turn America into a communist country.”
Back Story
On Jan. 2, 2021, a panicking and flailing Trump initiated an hourlong phone call with Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, who included his office’s General Counsel Ryan Germany and Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs. Trump was joined by several lawyers and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
“We won Georgia easily,” Trump said. “We won it by hundreds of thousands of votes.” He listed a litany of phony fraud allegations: e.g., close to 5,000 dead people voted; there were 18,000 secretly counted ballots for Biden; criminal removal of election machinery or machine parts; and dumped ballots, unsigned ballots, forgeries, and shredded ballots in totally corrupt Fulton County. Trump asked the Georgia officials to investigate his allegations about voter fraud. He framed his requests to state officials as a mission to ferret out criminal wrongdoing.
“And you can’t let it happen, and you are letting it happen,” Trump said. “You know, I mean, I’m notifying you that you’re letting it happen. So, look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.”
Finally, Trump asked Raffensperger, “What are we going to do? We won the election, and it’s not fair to take it away from us like this. And it’s going to be very costly in many ways. And I think you have to say that you’re going to re-examine it, and you can re-examine it, but re-examine it with people that want to find answers, not people that don’t want to find answers.”
Raffensperger replied, “We have to stand by our numbers. We believe our numbers are right.”
Size Matters
On January 21, 2017, the first full day of Trump’s presidency, hundreds of thousands of people crowded into the Nation’s capital for the Women’s March on Washington, aimed largely at the Trump administration and the threat it represented to reproductive, civil, and human rights.
Trump was already upset with what he felt were undercounts of his inauguration the day before, and falsely accused the media of lying about the size of the crowds at his inauguration, saying that when he looked out from his podium, “it looked like a million, a million and a half people,” and that the area “all the way back to the Washington Monument was packed.”
Crowd counting experts said the Women’s March in Washington was about three times the size of the audience at Trump’s inauguration, and drew over 470,000 people in the Capital; and between 3,267,134 and 5,246,670 people in marches across the U.S.
A few benchmarks: The annual Lollapalooza 4-day music festival in Chicago’s Grant Park draws 400,00 each July; as did Woodstock in August, 1969.
About the Author: Tom Gotowka is a resident of Old Lyme, whose entire adult career has been in healthcare. He will sit on the Navy side at the Army/Navy football game. He always sit on the crimson side at any Harvard/Yale contest. He enjoys reading historic speeches and considers himself a scholar of the period from FDR through JFK. A child of AM Radio, he probably knows the lyrics of every rock and roll or folk song published since 1960. He hopes these experiences give readers a sense of what he believes “qualify” him to write this column.