Thread by @gtconway3d

There’s some commentary on here saying we should disregard Trump’s “bloodbath” remarks last night because he was talking about potential harms to the auto industry.

That is misguided. 1/x

Trump may well have been referring to a “bloodbath” in that industry. He’s sufficiently incoherent that, as is so often the case with him, it’s hard to tell one way other what exactly he’s talking about at any given moment. 2/x

I’m willing to assume for the sake of argument that he was referring to cars. And it makes no difference to his malicious intent or to the danger he and his rhetoric poses. 3/x

What matters is that he consistently uses apocalyptic and violent language in an indiscriminate fashion as a result of his psychopathy and correlative authoritarian tendencies, and because he’s just plain evil. 4/x

It’s a classic trait and technique of authoritarian demagogues. He catastrophizes *everything* to rile up his cultish supporters, and to bind them to him, and to make them willing to do his bidding. 5/x

That’s dangerous all around because he’s encouraging them to believe that conditions are so bad or will become so bad, and that the political opposition is so awful, that anything is justified—including law-breaking and violence—to prevent those conditions and to destroy the opposition. 6/x

And so it doesn’t matter what he’s specifically referring to at the moment. He could be talking about i trans people in public bathrooms or the state of the auto industry or the border—it doesn’t matter. 7/x

He’s a dangerous psychopath, and after more than eight years of watching his sick behavior, we must not give him the benefit of the doubt. 8/8 (end).

typos/corrections

2/x — “one way or the other”
7/x — “talking about trans people”

3/x — “the danger he and his rhetoric pose”