“Bloodbath” takes the creepiness level to new heights

It’s him or us going into Nov. 8.

I don’t know about you, but if Donald Trump moved in next door to me, I’d
move away.  

Putting aside his politics (hard to do, but indulge me for a moment) Trump comes off as the crazy guy next door who’s so unhinged and scary, you’d have to decide to put the “For Sale” sign up.  He threatens. He rants. He  makes no sense.  To make matters worse in my community story, this neighbor wants another whack at the White House, the place on earth where he can do the most harm.

In his own awful league
And now, we’ve got “bloodbath.”  Who says that?  Not even Hitler, Stalin, or Putin, according to some quick AI research this afternoon.  Certainly, no American president has used “bloodbath” publicly – a term too awful, apparently, even for the ones friendly to the secessionist cause.  Before Trump, these before-Lincoln Confederate-friendly presidents were rated as the worst-of-the-worst on the Presidents List.  That honor has recently been bestowed on Trump, ranked 46 out of 46 on the latest iteration.  But now after “bloodbath,” how low can you go?

Trump claims his remarks were taken out of context.  Actually, in pre-adolescence fashion he first blamed them on a broken teleprompter.  But when that fell flat, he tried to make us believe he was talking about cars and tariffs – you know, the kind of things that “bloodbath” follows like the night becomes day.

Shocking while sucking up
It is true that Trump interjected the term while trying to ingratiate himself with any Ohio auto workers in the crowd, mixing incorrect, imprecise takes on macroeconomics with his own relentless brand of self-aggrandizement.  Referring to China’s making cars in Mexico, Trump said:

“If you’re listening” redux
““If you’re listening, President Xi –and you and I are friends. But he understands the way I deal.  Those big monster car manufacturing plants that you’re building in Mexico right now you’re not going to hire Americans and you’re not going to sell those cars to us, no!”
(crowd applause and cheers)

The remainder of Trump's remarks are almost unintelligible in their disjointed flow, but nonetheless telling in their implications.
“We’re going to put a 100 percent on every single car that comes across the line.  And you’re not gonna be able to sell those cars if I get elected!  

“Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole… that’s gonna be the least of it…that’s (sic) gonna be a bloodbath for the whole country! That’s gonna be the least of it. That’s gonna be the least of it….” (trails off).

As usual, Trump conflated at least two or three economic issues with the “bloodbath” idea, with its frightening political connotations, in one paragraph.  In one breath, he’s talking about the potential economic losses to Americans of China’s auto sales. If so, OK…so develop that point further. But he does not. 

In another breath, he infers that no car manufactured in Mexico would be sold under his policies without a 100 percent tariff.  He didn’t say so, but a little online research extends the consequences this way: the current price tag on a $99,000 Ford Bronco would balloon to $200K.  This joins Trump’s threats earlier in March to impose a 60 percent tariff on all Chinese goods and an additional 10 percent tariff on all goods made anywhere in the world (dec. 15 2021 fortune.org).

As if…
And, as if the tariffs would help anyone…in Trump’s World, tariffs are not passed on to the consumer – you and me – but to some nameless, faceless entity that pays them.  But in the real world, companies won’t take the hit, passing on the higher prices directly to the consumer (the tax foundation.org).

Did he forget? He signed NAFTA!
Also strange is Trump’s omission that the current policy of Mexico making cars and selling them in the U.S., just as America makes cars and sells them in Mexico and Canada, came about as a result of the Trump administration’s renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that Trump signed into law on Jan. 29, 2020.  Did he forget?  Or assume none of those listening to him would remember, or care that he did in this “facts-don’t matter” brotherhood of MAGA followers.  Hard to say.

In any event, it’s not Joe Biden’s fault the agreement exists, as Trump’s rant implies.

The “Bloodbath” part
But what’s most troubling is the, “Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole… that’s gonna be the least of it…that’s (sic) gonna be a bloodbath for the whole country! That’s gonna be the least of it. That’s gonna be the least of it….”  

Yes, promises of a “bloodbath” followed his attempt to pin today’s car manufacturing policies on Biden. But they were not “taken out of context,” as he contends.

The “tell”
You can find the “tell” in Trump’s leading up to threats of violence with his, “Now, if I don’t get elected…” phrase.  Trump establishes a clear cause and effect of violence following the possibility of his losing the election.  And the precedent of Trump calling for the violence of Jan. 6, 2021 following his not getting elected in 2020 clearly crystallizes the meaning, just as does Trump’s pledging allegiance as a choir of Jan. 6 insurrectionists sang the “Star Spangled Banner” to kick off the rally.

As MSNBC’s Jen Psaki said in commenting on Trump’s attempt to tie Trump’s “bloodbath” threat to car policy, “We did not miss the full context. This was not an off-message comment. This is his message.” 

Reactions to Trump’s “bloodbath” comment were swift and scathing.  But they were, too, after Trump’s, “There were very good people on both sides” claim while describing Nazi flag-carrying demonstrators in Charlottesville, Va. in August 2017.

As long as Trump has been on the American political scene, each of his attempts to take us into the gutter have been met with denunciations, vowing, “This is not us. We’re better than this.”  On November 8, 2024, less than eight months from now, Americans will determine if this is so.

–trg

Who I write for…