The Dehumanizing Language from Trump’s Speech Nobody’s Talking About
“You’re the real people,” he said, just before his fans stormed the U.S. Capitol.
“But just remember this, you’re stronger, you’re smarter. You’ve got more going than anybody and they try and demean everybody having to do with us and you’re the real people. You’re the people that built this nation.”
That’s a snippet from Donald Trump’s Insurrection Day speech that I haven’t seen others talking about. I mean, yeah, he says harmful stuff all the time, including lots of other impeachable stuff in that particular January 6 speech outside the U.S. Capitol, so it’s hard to let any one line stand out.
“You’re the real people.”
But to me, “You’re the real people” is particularly terrifying, dehumanizing language. When we cease to see others as “real” and deserving of life, horrific things can happen. Just before they stormed the Capitol building, Trump told the mostly white mob they were victims, and the ones “demean”ing them were inhuman, not “real people.”
Also, take note of, “You’re the people who built this nation,” said to a crowd of overwhelmingly white people, in a nation built with slave labor on stolen land. That’s the crypto-racism we’ve come to expect from Trump’s speeches and tweets (back when he could tweet).
“You’re stronger,” he told them. “You’re smarter.”
Here’s a link to the full transcript of Trump’s Insurrection Day speech, if you’d like to read it yourself.
As usual, Trump sandwiched his harmful commentary with navel-gazing. If you’re able to laugh in a time like this, you might enjoy this moment, when Trump whined about how Oprah doesn’t like him anymore.
“I had to beat Stacey Abrams and I had to beat Oprah, used to be a friend of mine. You know, I was on her last show, her last week. She picked the five outstanding people. I don’t think she thinks that anymore.
Once I ran for president, I didn’t notice too many calls coming in from Oprah. Believe it or not, she used to like me.”
Yeah, that’s from the same speech. I think we gotta laugh when we can.
Today I’m letting myself laugh, because it looks like Trump is being impeached today for the second time, and because we’re only a week away from Inauguration Day.
Edit: Oh yes! Trump was impeached, for incitement of insurrection.
In case it needs to be said, we’re all real people. Hopefully we can recover from the Trump era and keep working to improve our democracy, our empathy, and our collective well-being.
