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· Mark, the veteranFact-check: Pass

When They Call Americans 'Animals,' a Veteran Knows That Word

Calling fellow citizens 'animals' who'll 'kill your people' isn't conservatism. It's the oldest move in the authoritarian playbook - and a guy who wore the uniform knows it.

Calling fellow citizens 'animals' who'll 'kill your people' isn't conservatism. It's the oldest move in the authoritarian playbook - and a guy who wore the uniform knows it.
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Pull up a chair. I want to talk about one word, because I have heard it before, in history books and in places I served. The President stood up this week and called other Americans animals. So let's do the after-action report on what that word actually does.

Here is what was actually said, and I am going to be careful to quote it straight. He called progressive Democrats godless Communists. Then he said, quote, they're animals. And then this: they will close your Churches, they will kill your people. He called them the greatest threat to this country in two hundred and fifty years. Not a foreign army. His neighbors.

“They will close your Churches, they will kill your people.”
— Donald Trump

Now let me tell you who he was actually describing. Democrats who just won their primaries. Some of them democratic socialists, some of them practicing Muslims, all of them elected by their own neighbors, the same way the man complaining got elected. You can disagree with every policy they hold. I do, on plenty. Disagreement is the job. But disagreement is not what animals means.

WHO HE MEANT

  • Democrats who won their primaries
  • Elected by their own neighbors
  • Disagreement is the job - 'animals' isn't

So here is the part that gets me, as a man who wore the uniform. Every regime I was ever trained to stand against did this exact thing first. Before the tanks, before the camps, there is always a speech. And in the speech, the people in your way stop being people. They become vermin. They become animals. You dehumanize first, because once a man is an animal in enough minds, whatever comes next feels allowed.

THE PLAYBOOK

  • Step one is always a speech
  • The people in your way stop being people
  • Dehumanize first - the rest 'feels allowed'

And I want to be fair, because I always am. He did not order anyone hurt. These were words. But I spent a career learning that words are the first move, not a harmless one. We used to have a rule on the right, a good one. You argue the policy, you never deny the person. Somewhere we traded it for this. And a 'red scare' is a lot less scary than a leader who needs you to believe your neighbor is an animal.

So here is the honest assessment. I took an oath to the Constitution, and that document does not have an asterisk that says except for the Americans you hate. It protects the godless and the godly, the socialist and the banker, all of them, on purpose. The day we let a leader sort citizens into people and animals, we are not conserving anything. We are just picking who is next. Facts are hard to argue with.

THE HONEST ASSESSMENT

  • The oath has no 'except for' clause
  • It protects citizens you hate, on purpose
  • Sorting people into 'animals' isn't conservatism

Sources