 to American Issues, take one. I'm Tim Appichell, your host. Today's topic and title is Trump's Speech, Words of Bloodbath. Maybe a lot of you have recently seen the media coverage of Trump's speech at Vandala, Ohio, his campaign rally. And it was quite disturbing for those that remember January 6th and remember how Donald Trump stochastically put sentences together that imply the use of violence if he doesn't get his way. And I'm going to read a direct quote from that rally speech. We're going to put 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line. And you're not going to 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 going to be the least of it. It's going to be a bloodbath for the country, and that'll be the least of it. Now, critics say that, oh, you know, you can't look at those words because you're not putting in the proper context of the audio industry. Well, we're going to talk about the context of his speech and put it in proper context. And with me today to do that is my co-host Jay Fidel and our special esteemed guest, Louise Ng, partner of Denton's Law Firm. Louise, thank you very much for being a special guest here today. We appreciate it. And Jay, of course, always thank you for helping me out in the show. So, Jay, to you first, those, of course, we defend Donald Trump said, hey, why are you looking at this this quotation about creating a bloodbath if he's not elected? And you're not using it in the context of his comments to the president of China about auto industry manufacturing in Mexico. You've heard the quote. Do you remember what he said at the beginning of his speech in his rally by chance? No, tell me. Well, he began because he was on stage. And again, before anything starts, he's wearing his red mega hat. And then you hear the chorus through technology means, and it's been done before on his stage rallies, is the chorus of the national anthem sung by each prisoner, convicted prisoner of the January 6th insurrection. So behind the background of that music or those singing acapella singing is Donald Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. So that's the context. That's part of the context. And then throughout his speech, he starts to talk about immigration and how the the immigrants are, you know, quote unquote, they're animals. Recall that in previous speech, he called them vermin. This is stuff out of 1934 Germany. So that's basically how he starts off his his rally. He also refers to the January 6 convicted convicted felons as hostages and how they're great patriots. So what he's doing is we whipping his audience into this agreement or this this cabal that there's the assumption that they're patriots, they're hostages. And he promises them pardons on the first day he's elected President of the United States for a second term. So that's the beginning of the context. Your thoughts about his blood bath comments. You know, it seems like it's just one word. But there's much more here. We've been talking here on American issues for a year or two about stochastic speech and trying to figure out exactly how that works. And in a word, it seems to me that stochastic speech is a message, a coded message to his base, actually asking them to do something, giving them license to do something. And so when he says blood bath follows right along with all his, you know, remarks that he made on January 6. And it is the same kind of thing where he is asking them to do something. And that means to have a bloody event, whether it's in the national capital or in the streets. And clearly, to me, you know, just my look at the English language, and I think most people will see what Louise has to say. You know, I would interpret all of that to be directed at if he doesn't win. There'll be, you know, a blood bath. That's what he's really saying. That's the stochastic message that he's portraying. I don't think there's any confusion about it. But remember that demagogues use words that are emotionally charged. They throw them in, you know, to whatever they're saying. And they want to get an emotional reaction. They're talking to you really on two levels or more, just to evoke some kind of emotional reaction and action. And that's exactly what he's doing here now. And I don't think that he truly intended to make this speech about blood baths. I think that's just him. That's the way he is. And it's a window into his thought process. It's a window into what he really wants. And you know, so fundamentally at some level of his consciousness, he wants a blood bath. He's planning a blood bath. And he found a way to use that word, to find a word and use that word to motivate his base or the people he thinks are listening to it. It's very scary because A, he means it. And B, they're listening. And C, they're probably moved to action. And I guess ultimately the question is whether the message is loud and clear enough. And I think it is loud and clear enough. And B, whether these days after 1200 people have been tried and convicted and sent to jail over January 6th, whether they will have the motivation to respond in violence. But there's no question he's calling for violence. And he's not calling for violence about cars. Nobody could interpret it that way. But as a demagogue, you know, he throws that word on the fire. Well, by itself, it's enough to send a stochastic message. Right. And you know, you're right. We've talked about this for a couple of years now. And, you know, the First Amendment has a dividing line. And that is words that are used to promote violence. Unfortunately, that First Amendment right seems to be the dividing point seems to be whether speech is used for immediate violence that occurs after the speech is given, or as we bring up that stochastic speech is used, there's an implied use of violence. And maybe the event happens months, weeks, you know, later. Therefore, the speech itself was not deemed to be inappropriate because violence didn't occur immediately after the words are spoken. The First Amendment really hasn't been interpreted to include this kind of thing. And maybe Trump will change that. Maybe something is going to happen here where the courts are going to have to figure out that if he's evoking violence, predictably, where you and me and Louise, we can all figure out what he's really trying to do and then see that he does it. You know, that should not be protected speech. I want to add also that implicit in the use of the word bloodbath, just as on January 6th, he is saying, I'll be there with you. I'm planning something. It's not just you. It's us. It's us against the, you know, the deep state, the government, what have you. It's us making a real mess. And I think the implication, especially in the context of what happened on January 6th, is that he's organizing something. He's got a plan and he wants you to join the plan for a bloodbath. We're going to do it together. Well, let's also emphasize the fact that you said, if I'm not elected, there'll be a bloodbath. So that's the important part. And also, if you look at the words during that, the quotation is, he said, that's going to be the least of it. He said that two times, meaning that this tariff against cars will be the least of the issues. It's the bloodbath that's going to take priority. So you have to look at that one sentence is, that's going to be the least of it. Also, during the rally, before this quotation was brought up on the stage by Donald Trump, he went into the fake election routine. Fake election that it was was a quotation. It's a rigged election. You'll fight a crooked election that then they indict you. The radical left Democrats rigged the presidential election in 2020. That's not going to happen in 2024. That's not going to happen ever again. So you basically have him whipping up the crowd over a number of motifs, if you will, immigration and their animals and their vermin, the fake election, getting them whipped up and to agree that only Donald Trump can fix it. Ficked all the problems in the country. His rallies last for an hour and a half. And I think most of it is not on script. I don't think he uses the teleprompter all that much on some of these rallies. So you're right. The bloodbath probably was not in his teleprompter speech. It comes out naturally for him. And when he uses it, his staff have to try to get him out of the trouble that he created. So, Luis, your comments about Donald Trump's quotation, the use of bloodbath if he's not elected president again, and your general impression of where we are in this campaign with Donald Trump and the motifs he brings up to the stage? He is a troubling personality. And what I'm troubled by is that he seems to appeal to so many people who are not seeing the fact that this is a man who egged on the crowd in January 6th and then kind of abandoned them. He did not join them. He's not with them. All these people have been convicted because he egged them on and then backed off the safe himself. And these folks that follow him don't seem to realize that he's just as willing to throw them under the bus as anybody else. That said, I find his words very concerning. And Tim, as I had mentioned to you before, and as you have said, it just seems like he's just taken a page out of the playbook of Mein Kampf and the rise of Nazism and Hitlerism. And it had reminded me of a trip to Berlin that we took in the summer and seeing some of the museum displays about the rise of Nazism and terrorism, which were just too much in parallel with what Trump and his cronies seem to be doing. Well, can you mention a couple of those parallels? Sure, I will. And the ones that really stuck out for me was one, there was a big poster. This is in a museum called the Topography of Terror. And it's built on the grounds of what was once the SS headquarters. And so now it's sort of like this, it looks kind of like post-health, very very desolate land, but there's this very stark building in the middle. And it's part of it as a museum, part of it as a meeting and learning center. But one of the posters talked about how Hitler consolidated power in the executive. That's how he started his rise to power. And days before that, there had been an article in The New York Times about how Trump and his cronies had already laid plans to consolidate power in the White House if he was elected. So concern number one, next poster comes along. And they talk about how you find scapegoats, you create people to be against or issues to be against. And they targeted gays, they targeted abortion as things that were against the values of the state and justified persecution and hate. And then of course, there were the posters covering the persecution of Jews and the Holocaust. And why didn't Germans rise up against those horrors? And one of the explanations was that Hitler and his group had made people economically comfortable. They felt they were in a good economic situation. So why should they worry about what else was going on and human rights violations if they were comfortable themselves? So it was all in all, it was just too disturbingly similar to what was going on here. You know, it's interesting you mentioned economic prosperity for the Germans. And that was in the museum. Recently, we had General Kelly, Donald Trump's chief advisor, chief of staff, actually, the first one. And Donald Trump is reported from General Kelly that he said Hitler did a lot of good things. And Kelly said specifically what? And he said, well, he improved the economy, greatly improved the economy. And then General Kelly's remark was, yeah, he did. But he used it against the stone people and against the world. You can never say anything good about Hitler. I'm sure that enraged Donald Trump at the time. So thank you for bringing those points up. And I think that we have to kind of view Donald Trump's speeches from here on in, in context of what was happening, what was said, the methodology of what was said in Germany in 1934, 1935, leading up to 1938. What you mentioned in the points that you brought was one, some of the classic techniques of propaganda, scapegoating is a classic technique. The big lie of course is, but also the fascist roadmap to power. And that is consolidation of agencies that work under you and their loyalties not to the mission or to the Constitution in this country or the rule of law, their mission is to loyalty to one and one only individual. And that would be Donald Trump. So, Louise, thank you so much for bringing that to the table. Appreciate it. Jay, Timothy Snyder, who's a history professor at Yale, looked at this speech, looked at this rally, pointed out the true context of it, particularly in the beginning of calling the January 6th convicted felons, patriots, hostages, and how he was going to pardon them because they've been badly mistreated. One of the things he said, and I want to get your opinion on this, is he said, the media needs to start covering these rallies more intently, carefully, and just listen and listen to the words that he's using. Back seven years ago, we did Trump week and we said that Donald Trump's getting too much airtime, too much media time. And Timothy Snyder seems to be suggesting just the opposite. Your thoughts about media coverage at his rallies and the horrible things he says. Is that a distraction, which we used to call it, a distraction to get the people's attention away from the issues that Donald Trump's trying to accomplish? Or is it something that we need the alarm bells to go off on because of his words that he uses at these rallies? That is such a good question. I compliment you on that question and that apparent conflict. And yes, Louise, Tim and I have talked about that for years, about how we should ignore the remarks that Trump made. It's just healthier not to listen because he was so nutcase. And that was the right thing for a long time. And arguably, it's still the right thing because Trump occupies the media every day, every show, every segment. He's there. He's there in all the newsletters I get. And now he is the talk of the town. He always wanted to be that. And if there's one benefit for him over these past few years, it's that he is the talk of the town, the talk of the world even. And so you say to yourself, gee, I don't want to hear it anymore. I can't stand it because I know he's lying. I know he's trying to hurt people. And he's trying to appeal to something in the human condition, which is best defined in German, which is the word Schadenfreude, enjoyment of the misfortune of others. It's like scapegoating. It's part of the same thing. So I don't want to hear it. On the other hand, I take Tim Snyder pretty seriously. He is really a philosopher king as far as I'm concerned. And he does raise an issue, and you raise an issue, Tim, that we should consider. We need to parse the language. We need to see exactly what he's saying and what he's trying to do. It'll be a wild time. What does that mean? I'll be with you. What does that mean? All kinds of implications. And although Trump did not do well at the University of Pennsylvania, and my understanding is his father jimmied his grades over there somehow, he was afraid to actually publicize his grades because he didn't do very well. In fact, he might not have been able to stay at Warton, was it, without his father's intercession. I doubt that he really read Mein Kampf. I doubt that he has an intellectual turn on this. I think it's him, and he's like special talent. What was the fellow in Rain Man, Dustin Hoffman? What was that called? Oh, it's Savant. It's like an idiot, Savant. Thank you. Thank you. That's what it is. I mean, down deep without reading Mein Kampf, he understands the process of consolidating power. He understands the process of compromising, corrupting everything around him, of making it transactional. And this is not something he read or studied or has any real philosophy about. It's just deep inside him. He's an idiot, Savant, and that's his strength. And so I think when he comes up with these words and these stochastic remarks, it comes from that part of him. So, and I feel we do have to watch what he says. We do have to parse it because we have to try to understand how his base is taking this. And we have to try to counterman that somehow. The media has to counterman the message that he's sending. And we can't do that unless we listen carefully and parse it word for word, like we're doing now with the word bloodbath. So I think Tim Snyder is right. Jay, I would also think that as much as he may be the idiot Savant who just has a dictator frame of mind, there are people behind him who are perhaps smarter and more calculated, who are also supporting this march to dictatorship. Well, I totally agree. But that's part of being what he is. Part of being what he is, is to surround himself with people who are corruptible. And the funny thing is, you say, ah, these guys, they have great credentials. They're around him in the White House. People in the White House must know a few things or two. They must have some leadership qualities. They must be moral. No, if you are an idiot Savant autocratic leader, you don't want good people around you. You want corruptible people around you. And I think I go in with the assumption that everybody he selects for any job he believes is corruptible. Good point. And Luis, you bring up an excellent point about the people around him. I think of Mitch McConnell, who couldn't stand Donald Trump, but found him to be useful. I think of Putin, who looks at Trump and thinks he's, what they call him, a useful idiot. So the word idiot comes up in a couple of contexts here. And I think Donald Trump, although he's maniacal genius on how he can persuade people and get them to believe and follow whatever he says and does, he's really all that, not that bright. But yet, those around him think they can control them and therefore get what they want from them. So there goes, there's half the problem. That's why I think you have a lot of Republicans who are either scared to speak up or find them still useful to carry their water. So thank you, Luis, for bringing up that point. I wanted to bring up also, his defenders say that the Democrats, the libtards, they have Trump derangement syndrome. For whatever Donald Trump says, they take in the wrong way and they just can't help themselves to criticize Trump and make a big issue of terms like bloodbath or I'll be a dictator for a day. Are his defenders right? Are Democrats and some independents and some Republicans uber sensitive to Donald Trump's words and we take the ball down the field far too fast? Or are we correct that Donald Trump speaks his mind? He tells us his game plan openly and we're right to call it out. Your thoughts on that, Luis? I think we're right to call it out. I mean, I did, I agree with you at the beginning. I thought the media is paying too much attention to him. Well, in a way they are and they're paying too much attention to the wrong things. We see people trying to correct the course and editorials and the like, but I do think he's, we do need to pay attention. People perhaps weren't taking folks like Hitler and others seriously enough and we need to be able to fight back and just remind people what this democracy is about, what make America great, which is diversity and immigration. Come back with some, with the positives. Interestingly, at dinner last night with some folks that are not American, they're from Australia, just talking about the extremism in our country. How did it arise? And what is going to happen in the next election? And I think that a lot of people are just looking on going what is going on in America and it can, can Americans really be that stupid to elect him again? And I hope this time we're, they're, you know, we don't have enough deranged people who will elect this man because he will be more dangerous this time because he's probably learned his lesson or those around him have learned his lesson and are going to figure out how to get things done this time. Well, okay, so we've had a good seven years of Donald Trump's speech on the media almost every day. And Jay, you and I, you might recall this too, that there comes a point where your, your listening audience becomes desensitized because it's every day, some of the things are repeated over and over again. I'm reminded when Donald Trump first started his campaign and he basically referred to John McCain, who was a war veteran hero because he fought bravely and he was captured in, you know, captured in Vietnam. And Donald Trump proudly boasted that John McCain's no hero. My heroes are people who are thrown in are captured. Then fast forward, I mean, that created quite a stir. There was a lot of veterans very upset with that. Then fast forward when he's president of the United States. And as reported by John Kelly and confirmed by John Kelly, General John Kelly, that it was his quotations that the dead veterans in World War One grave sites in Europe and World War Two were suckers and losers. Harley a peep from the veterans organizations, Harley a peep that people were aghast by Donald Trump referring to our dead veterans, our heroes as suckers and losers. So is there the effect of desensitizing the listening population of America? And that's how he gets away with it. Are we desensitized? Another great question, Tim. I think in large part, a lot of people are. They can't hear it anymore. I've heard that. I'm not going to respond to it. I don't care about it. I'm going to lead my life without thinking about it. We, however, the three of us and other people we know, we do care about it and we want to know what's going on. We want to follow what's going on. Well, let's talk for a moment about mythology, about psychopath type mythology. I personally, I treat Trump as a very sick man and a psychopath, if you will. And I think that kind of pathology includes the notion that you test the boundaries. You always test the boundaries. And if you could, if you think you can get away with it, then you do it. If there's pushback, maybe you reconsider. And so I think that, you know, there's a story of that kind of sine curve for a lot of the things that he's suggested and done. In other words, he comes up with something completely ridiculous and he gets pushed back, maybe backs off. Maybe he backs off on his own motion or he backs off because his staff has said, hey, Donald, you really can't say that and do that. Of course, the number of people on his staff that would ask him to push back is going to decline dramatically if he's in office again. They won't control him. There will be no guardrails. And as Louise suggested, he knows the story. He knows how to push it around so that nobody can stop him. Second time around, it'll be worse for sure. But in the way of psychopaths, if he finds this pushback, at least he will consider not doing it. So you start out with the assumption that he really means what he says. This is him. This is that certain level of consciousness that says, yeah, we're going to have a bloodbath and I'll be there and I want you to be there and I want there to be blood in the street. And all for me, that I will clothe that in patriotism, in the star spangled banner draped in the American flag and the Pledge of Allegiance, which is really devotion to Trump. And so I guess what I'm saying is that the press needs to cover this. The press needs to watch every word and to figure out how that affects the base, the base who are the objects of shot and froid, the subject of shot and froid, the base who would like to see the country destroyed, even if it means they will be destroyed. It's this strange, Jim, what's his name? Jim Jones with the Poulet. Guyana, they don't mind drinking the Poulet because it's really important to destroy everything, gives them a kind of pleasure to destroy everything. So they drink the Poulet and destroy themselves too. And he's asking him to do that. Does he mean it? It's a big question. Does he mean it? Will he do it on day one? And I want to address that in a minute. Will he do it on day one or is he waiting, testing for pushback? And if the media pushes back, he is less likely to do it. If the media treats it as old news and they ignore it and they don't push back, it's more likely that he will do it. On the day one thing, remember what he said? They said, will you be an autocrat? And he said, only on day one. Only, the word only. I said, that was a twist of phrase. Remember, you know, although he's an idiot savant, he knows how to play with the language always. Even when he was in real estate, especially in real estate. He's really a kind of interesting exemplar of the real estate industry in New York City. But anyway, so when he says, bloodbath, what are they going to do? And what is he going to do on day one? I suggest to you what he really meant was, I am going to make the United States an autocracy on day one. After that, there won't be an issue. Yeah, he actually mentioned the fact that there won't be any elections. Basically, if he's not re-elected. So he said that in his Ohio speech. Louise, your final thoughts. I guess I just want to mention, it seems to be in 2016, 2017, when Donald Trump was throwing his hat in the ring. The media was, for lack of a better word, mesmerized. I mean, here was this new phenomena that broke all the norms about how to act as a presidential candidate. And I think the media was either naive. Maybe there's a lot of young reporters, but seemed to be a complete mesmerization of Donald Trump and how his coverage took place. Is the media a little more savvy, a little more knowledgeable? Do you think they catch on to the nuances with his words and cover this better than they did back in 2017? Yeah, it depends on which media you're talking about. I think that there is, I think we have more commentators and we need to be, you know, and we need to just foster the critical thinkers and the media that are calling him out on these things. And, you know, folks like Heather Cox Richardson, a professor who writes current analyses of tying to history, I think we need to pay attention to that. I think we need to support groups who are looking, you know, of finding ways to get voters out and educate. It's not just the media, it's education too. It's, you know, trying to get voters out and educating them that we need to do to prepare for this next election. Okay, you know, we've run out of time, so Luis, I'm going to go to you for your final thoughts on this topic or anything else. Well, my final thought is that everybody should be, they should be reading the news as well as reading the commentary behind the news and reading, going for the more balanced media. Obviously, that that's my personal view, but I think, you know, NPR, New York Times, Washington Post, those are the ones I follow because they will, they will just be more analytical and try to get to the truth. Wonderful, thank you so much. Jay, you get the last word on this topic. Yeah, I read the New York Times or the Washington Post, but sometimes I feel that I'm in a minority group of reading the Washington Post and the New York Times because the people in the, in the red bubble are not reading it, would never read it. I ran into a guy at a social one time and I mentioned an article in the New York Times, he said, the New York Times, I would never read the New York Times, really. It's the leading newspaper record in the country. No, I would never read the New York Times. So what you have is a large number of people, maybe tens of millions or more, who would never read the New York Times. They consider it the other bubble. So I'm concerned about that. And my final comment to you guys is that this doesn't happen. It doesn't come up because we say that people shouldn't educate themselves. The teachers and the schools are not going to do that, honestly. The teachers in the colleges, I don't know, I really don't know, haven't been to college in a long time. But it ultimately, in a practical way, it depends on the Democratic Party. For Trump's negative leadership for his disastrous, vicious, cruel, idiot savant leadership, you've got to counterman that. And it falls on the Democratic Party as a consolidated political group, a national group, to respond to that. And I guess that means Biden, but it also means the party in general. I get emails from 50 candidates in 50 states. They all want some money from me. They think I'm going to save them. Not. You've got to have a voice or at least a limited number of leadership voices that come out there and counterman everything that Trump says, which is autocratic. And I think that is the solution. But I am not confident that it will be reached. I want to thank you for that comment. I'd like to echo it. And also just add, let's not forget, the independents are devoted independents of this country, because we'll surely need their votes come November 2024. I'd like to thank Jay Fidel. I'd like to add one other thing, which we haven't discussed here. And that is Trump is certifiably crazy. And it's, I don't know whether it's a dementia or some kind of neurological issue, or he's just crazy. Maybe it's both. But the bottom line, yeah, right, exactly. Mary Trump wrote a book. She had direct observation, years of observation, and she's a clinical psychologist. So she had some skin in the game. She had some credibility in writing of that book. And maybe that book should be dusted off. She wrote it some years ago. Time to dust that book off and look at it again. Good point. So if you've been close to these kinds of diseases, then this kind of dementia process, and some of us have, you know, with relatives and friends and all that, fact is it gets worse. And we have, what, seven or eight months to go before the election, eight months, whatever. It's a fair chance that if Trump is, as I say, into a dementia process, he's going to get worse. And that is a factor definitely in play, that he's going to make these kind of crazy statements with bloodbaths and all that, more and more and more. And the number of people in the base who respond to him will shrink. And the number of people at the periphery, the independence and the more liberal people will understand this guy's nutcakes. And I think that's a factor. And it's highly ironic that he's the one attacking Biden for his supposed age-related, because he, you know, Trump is far worse. Biden has actually gotten stuff done. Let's stop talking about his age and talk about what he's done. Yeah, that's a good point, Louise. It's classic projection. Donald Trump does it all the time, that which he's guilty of, he accuses others of doing. He deflects the fact that he's doing it. So good point. Excellent point. Hey, I want to thank you, Jay, for joining us. Thank you for your sage comments. Louise, I want to thank you for your insightful comments and really making this topic really beneficial for our listening audience. Tim Appichella, with American Issues Take One. And if you like this program, please check, donate or follow us. We'd like to do these thoughtful topics, and we hope we generate some thoughts within yourself. And until then, next week, loha.