Thursday's 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings marked an election marked by contrasts.
In France, Biden spoke passionately about the “American story” told by the rows of graves at the Normandy American Cemetery: “Officers and NCOs, immigrants and native-born, of different races and faiths, nearly 10,000 heroes buried side by side, but they are all Americans.”
In Phoenix, Trump floated a racist “Great Swap” conspiracy theory and said Biden had orchestrated an “invasion” of the border as part of a “deliberate destruction of our sovereignty” because “they would think these people would vote.”
Biden praised NATO as “the greatest military alliance in the history of the world” and vowed to defend Ukraine, saying, “We cannot imagine bowing down to a dictator. To do so would be to forget what happened on these hallowed shores.”
Trump praised a modern-day tyrant, Viktor Orbán of Hungary (“a strong man, a very powerful man”), complained about “endless wars” and “delinquent” Europeans, and vowed to “spend our own money at home,” including “moving, if necessary, thousands of troops currently stationed overseas to our own borders.”
Biden praised the heroes of Operation Overlord, who launched an invasion to liberate the continent knowing “there was a real possibility of death.” Trump promised the largest “deportation operation” in U.S. history.
Biden spoke forcefully about the threats to democracy then and now: “When times were tested, the Allied forces at Normandy did their duty. The question for us now is, when times are tested, will we do our duty? We live in a time when democracy is more at risk around the world than at any time since the end of World War II, since these shores were stormed in 1944. Now we must ask ourselves: Will we stand up to tyranny?… Will we defend democracy? Will we come together? My answer is yes, and there is no other way to answer that than yes.”
And what about Trump? He posted on social media about the “immortal heroes who landed at Normandy,” but his message in Phoenix was full of egotistical musings and nihilistic commentary about the “rigged trial in New York.” “The whole thing is a sham. The impeachment is a sham. The trial is a disgrace to our country. The whole thing is a sham,” he said. “I don't like to use the word 'bastard' in front of these beautiful children, so I won't say it.”
The crowd began chanting, “Bulls—! Bulls—! Bulls—!”
Biden's speech was a major attempt to rally Europe and the US against the far-right nationalists who threaten the free world. “Isolationism was not the answer 80 years ago, and it is not the answer today,” he warned. “The world's dictators are watching to see what happens in Ukraine, to see whether they allow this illegal aggression to go unchecked. We cannot allow that. It is completely unthinkable to bow down to tyrants, to bow down to dictators.”
Such lofty ideals are foreign to Trump, who is dedicated to causes other than his own. When he visited a US military cemetery in France in 2018, then-Chief of Staff John Kelly said he didn't visit because it was full of “idiots and losers.” Trump denies it, but there's no denying that in 2019, at the 75th anniversary of the Normandy landings in Normandy, he gave a Fox News interview full of scathing political attacks, with the headstones of fallen heroes as a backdrop. His message has only gotten more vulgar since then.
In Phoenix, Trump was at an event hosted by right-wing firebrand Charlie Kirk, who has said things like Martin Luther King was “terrible” and that “passing the Civil Rights Act was a huge mistake.” Trump called former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whom he had pardoned for contempt of court charges related to racial discrimination and the mistreatment of immigrants in Arizona, onto the stage. Trump hugged and kissed Arpaio, who called Trump “the only hero I've ever known in my life.”
Do Americans see their country in the dark and hopeless picture Trump paints? “Our country is falling apart,” Trump said, and if he doesn't take power back, “this country is finished. There will be no country anymore.” Trump said the country is full of “creepy people” and has become a “Third World dungeon dumping ground.”
Or will Americans choose to see a country striving to achieve the higher purpose Biden described? “Let's remember those who fought here, who died here, who literally saved the world here, and be worthy of their sacrifice,” he said. “When history is written about our generation in 10, 20, 30, 50, 80 years, let's be the generation that says, when that time comes, we rose to the moment, we rose to the challenge, our alliance is stronger, and we saved democracy in our time.”
Trump's first week as a political prisoner has been difficult.
He was tasked with playing several tough rounds of golf, including some very difficult par 5s.
He's been forced to endure the harsh confinement of a three-story apartment in Trump Tower, a mansion at Mar-a-Lago and a Boeing 757.
He was exposed to dangerous conditions at United Fighting Championships for more than three hours, all while sitting at ringside.
He even received the most cruel and unusual punishment: a 90-minute interview with “Fox & Friends,” an hour with Sean Hannity, and even a terrifying one-on-one interview with Newsmax.
He was eventually transported to Phoenix on Thursday, where he was forced to experience the enthusiasm of enthusiastic supporters at a campaign event.
And you thought the Alexei Navalny situation was bad.
Of course, while Trump is a convicted criminal, he is not in prison and will not be when he is sentenced next month. In reality, he has taken all of the above suffering of his own free will. But he sees great value in declaring himself a “political prisoner,” as his campaign did in a fundraising pitch shortly after he was convicted last week. Asked by NBC's Kelly O'Donnell how he responded to Trump's claim that Biden held him captive, Biden could think of no reply other than a stunned smile, which the Trump campaign deemed a “look of malice.”
“Did you see that creepy smile?” Trump asked in another remark to his supporters. “He's smiling because he's targeting you!”
Hmm. What was Trump trying to achieve by telling his supporters he'd been captured by his opponent, and suggesting Biden was now pointing a loaded gun at them? If that wasn't clear enough, Trump directly threatened violence in an interview with “Fox & Friends” that aired on Sunday. “I don't know if the public can stand that” if he were to be jailed or placed under house arrest, he said. “At some point, there's going to be a breaking point.”
At the start of a rally in Phoenix on Thursday, supporters waved posters of Trump's face that read “We will never surrender,” and a video was played of Trump repeatedly warning his supporters of the danger they were in. “They're not coming after me, they're coming after you, and I just happen to be in their way,” he said.
As Washington Post reporter Aaron Blake noted, Trump has made many such violent threats over the past few years. After the FBI retrieved classified documents from Mar-a-Lago, he predicted that “terrible things could happen” because “people are so angry,” and after he was indicted in the hush money case, he warned of “possible death and destruction,” saying, “Our country is being destroyed, even though they're telling us to be peaceful.” He predicted “national chaos” if he was indicted, and when asked if there would be violence if he lost in November, he said, “It depends.”
Trump's brand has always been to drive people to despair and delusion. He did just that the morning after his New York guilty verdict, speaking from Trump Tower, saying the judge in the hush-money trial was “crazy” and a “devil” and that he had “literally crucified” defense witnesses. Then he again said his supporters were his targets. “If they can do this to me, they can do it to anybody. They're bad people. I think in a lot of cases they're sick people.”
He stoked the paranoia again during an appearance on “Fox & Friends” on Sunday, implicitly warning that an “enemy from within” could “do more damage to this country” than Russia or China.
On Tuesday, Trump threatened to actually weaponize the Justice Department against his enemies if he takes power back, countering a fictional story he and his MAGA supporters have come up with about “weaponizing” the Department of Justice. “It's a very, very scary path that they're trying to lead us down, and it's very possible that they will,” Trump warned on Newsmax.
The next day, Trump repeated the threat on Hannity's show, saying he had “every right” to prosecute his political opponents. Hannity repeatedly asked Trump to deny the notion that “you want retribution, that you're going to use the justice system to go after your political opponents.” But Trump hesitated, refusing to back down from the idea. “Look, I know you want me to say something nice,” he said. “But I don't want to come across as naive.”
On Thursday, Trump expanded his call for revenge, saying he wanted to see the indictments of members of the House committee that investigated the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
Never mind that the Justice Department has had no role in any of the cases where courts have ruled against Trump: the state hush-money case (he was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records), the New York business fraud case (he lied about his assets and the judge ordered him to pay $355 million), or the sexual abuse and defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll (he was ordered to pay $88 million). And never mind that at the top of this weaponized justice system is the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) called for the Supreme Court to “step in” and vacate Trump's conviction before the case goes through the appeals process. Johnson assured Fox News viewers that the justices are on Trump's side. “I know many of the justices personally,” he said, “and they're going to get this right.”
Trump and his allies want revenge, regardless of merit. Trump veteran Steve Bannon said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg “should and will be in jail” for his role in the hush-money case. He told Axios that Trump's second term “will follow every war that unfolds…It's only going to get more vicious as time goes on.” (Bannon is due in prison by July 1 for failing to comply with a Jan. 6 subpoena from the committee.)
Laura Loomer, a far-right activist cultivated by President Trump, said Democrats “should be punished not just with prison but with the death penalty.”
Trump's followers in Congress have echoed the cries for revenge. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who is auditioning to be Trump's running mate, called Biden “a crazy man supported by evil, crazy people” and added, using a fire emoji, “It's time to fight fire with fire.”
Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) said he would “aggressively pursue the president and his entire family” because “what's good for the goose is good for the pair.”
And Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) told Axios that a sentence against Trump would be “hellish punishment” and that “there's always the possibility of chaos.”
These actions have real consequences: In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee this week, Attorney General Merrick Garland spoke of “violent threats of violence directed at career civil servants at the Department of Justice,” but Republicans on the committee stuck to their claims of “weaponization of government against the American people” and “systematic enforcement of the law against Trump.”
Testifying before the House Select Subcommittee on Coronavirus Infections this week, Dr. Anthony Fauci said that even though he is retired as the face of the government's pandemic response, he still needs full-time security because of all the threats he faces. “I get death threats every time someone says I'm responsible for the deaths of people around the world,” he testified. And yet, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) told him he should be “charged with crimes against humanity.”
And if violence breaks out, as it did on Jan. 6, Trump will likely again say it's not his fault. In an interview with Newsmax this week, Trump insisted he never uttered his best-known phrase from the 2016 campaign in reference to Hillary Clinton: “I never said, 'Lock her up.'”
But the evidence that he did is abundant, as is the evil rhetoric he is using this time.
