Trump’s Rhetoric Isn’t Normal

In the final days of the U.S. presidential campaign, the media needs to do a much better job highlighting the differences between what Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump deem to be legitimate in the name of partisan warfare.

Dueling “garbage” remarks from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe and U.S. President Joe Biden have taken up plenty of oxygen this news cycle, as have quotes from businessman Mark Cuban and a vulgar advertisement from a group backed by Elon Musk.

What Trump just said in Arizona blew these offenses out of the water. In a stunning invocation of violence, Trump said onstage at an event on Thursday that former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney should be put on a battlefield “with nine barrels shooting at her.”

These violent remarks came directly from the mouth of Trump, not from a surrogate. Nor were they some sort of anomaly. Throughout the campaign, he has repeatedly warned of deploying military power against “the enemy from within.” For all the airtime that is being paid to Biden’s garbage word salad, it was Trump who said in September, “It’s the people that surround [Harris]. They’re scum and they want to take down our country. They are absolute garbage.”

In stark contrast, Harris has not deployed violent rhetoric about opponents, instead trying to appeal to potential Trump voters.

There is a fundamental asymmetry between what these campaigns see as okay, and too often, this distinction is lost in coverage that presents outrageous statements as a normal part of politics. Reasonable people can disagree on candidates, but democracy depends on voters understanding what kinds of words and actions fall outside the boundaries of acceptable.