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Demonize the Dems: Trump Fear-Mongering Boils Over Ahead of Midterms

In a new escalation of the US leader’s notoriously polarizing rhetoric, President Donald Trump has chosen to use fear as his primary message to supporters.
Sputnik

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During a Saturday rally to drum up support for Republican candidates ahead of the upcoming US November midterm elections, Trump painted opposition party members as "dangerous" and "extreme."

Democratic party members were now, in Trump's description, "too extreme and too dangerous to govern," cited by The Hill.

Earlier tweets — the preferred delivery method for the president's political messaging — conflated criminal psychopathic behavior with descriptions of opposing lawmakers as an "angry mob," a rhetorical tactic taken from the playbook of autocratic regimes of the 20th century.

"You don't hand matches to an arsonist, and you don't give power to an angry left-wing mob," Trump tweeted, following a carefully-scripted rally of vetted supporters in Kansas.

"Democrats have become too EXTREME and TOO DANGEROUS to govern," the 45th president avowed.

In suggesting to his faithful that opposing points of view were the stuff of torch-lit mob behavior — eerily similar to the racist marches of torch-carrying white-nationalist Trump supporters in Charlottesville, Virginia, that preceded a deadly killing last year — the US president without irony stated: " Republicans believe in the rule of law — not the rule of the mob," cited by the New York Post.

Trump used dystopian imagery to darkly hint that any Democratic wins in the November midterms would shift the balance of power in such a way as to harm America, going so far as to affirm — in a script seemingly written for a Hollywood Mafia thug — that "things could change," according to the Huffington Post.

"If you allow the wrong people to get into office," Trump warned, "things could change."

"They could change and they could change fast," he added.

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During last week's hotly-debated US Senate confirmation hearings for Justice Brett Kavanaugh's seat on the bench of the US Supreme Court, Trump suggested to followers that the American legal system was under siege, and that it was "very scary" for young men, who — in the president's view — could be charged with sexual assault at any time by anyone.

Although many on Capitol Hill noted that Kavanaugh was not on trial but merely applying for a job, the president nonetheless kept the fires of anger burning for his constituency.

Trump has recently increased his rally appearances and most stops have occurred in those states where Republicans are fighting to keep seats, hoping to stave off Democratic wins that would end the GOP majority in the Senate as well as retaking control of the House of Representatives.

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