Donald Trump called Appearing on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show Monday night, the two men discussed the biggest topic in political media: Joe Biden’s shockingly poor performance in the latest presidential debate and the future of Biden’s reelection bid. But about 10 minutes in, Hannity was ready for a darker topic familiar to Trump: the border.
Hannity warned of a “clear and present danger” posed by “approximately 11 million undocumented Joe Biden immigrants” in the United States. He criticized Democrats, saying “there is a very real possibility that terrorist cells are already here.” “I am more concerned about national security than ever before.”
Trump responded by quoting Hannity’s assertion: “There’s a 100 percent certainty that we’re going to have a terrorist attack.” Trump said he agreed with that assessment, then expanded on it.
We are bringing terrorists into our country at a level that we have never seen before. Terrorists are coming in. Sean, they are coming in from the mental hospitals and the mental institutions. They are coming in from prisons and jails all over the world… They are pouring into our country as prisoners, as mentally ill people. They are coming into our country. They are coming in as terrorists. This is poisoning our country.
Immigration is a top issue for voters, and Trump’s unsubstantiated smear campaign on immigrants is clearly aimed at motivating his base. But his demagoguery is also part of a long campaign of thinly veiled propaganda that increases the risk of political violence at the hands of Trump’s extremist supporters. For years, Trump has used this method, known to national security experts as probabilistic terrorism, against a variety of political opponents. With the help of Fox pundits, immigration has been on Trump’s list since he entered the 2016 presidential race. As I reported in late June:
Over the years, Trump has targeted many people, including immigrants, journalists, judges, and law enforcement officers. Threats and violence have followed. Proving a direct link is virtually impossible, which is the point, and the madness of the method, so to speak. But it’s not hard to see the connection in many cases. A mass shooter who claimed to be motivated by an immigrant “invasion” after Trump and his Fox News allies hyped up such fears. Death threats against journalists skyrocketed after Trump and his advisers denounced the media as “the enemy of the American people.” After Trump exposed the Mar-a-Lago raid, a Trump supporter attacked an FBI field office after his ally, Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar, said, “We have to destroy the FBI,” but was stopped.
Previously, Trump had used Nazi-style rhetoric, declaring that those he viewed as political enemies were “living like vermin within our country’s borders” and that immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our nation.” Behavioral research shows that stoking political anger with disgust and contempt creates a powerful hatred that increases the likelihood of violence.
Senior law enforcement and security experts have recently said that extremist violence from white supremacist groups and Trump’s MAGA movement is a top concern ahead of the November election. How will some fanatical Trump followers react to the constant message that hordes of immigrants are poised to attack?
“We’re going to have to catch these criminals,” Trump told Hannity on Monday, emphasizing his claim that they are dangerous, calling them “very high-level” and “very bad.” “We’re going to catch them. We’re going to do the biggest deportation in history.”
