Trump Is Taking a Dark Turn

If you think that Donald Trump’s speeches this campaign cycle are just more of the same, consider the analysis of the person who knows more about them than anyone else.

“They thought they’d be out there jumping up and down, ‘Make America great again,’” this observer remarked of a rally in Wisconsin on Saturday. “I’m just saying, this is a dark—this is a dark speech.”

That clear-eyed pundit was Donald Trump, offering a better analysis than a great deal of the press coverage did. As Trump himself observed, he’s been on a particularly bleak and disturbing tear, even by his own standards. I wrote late last year about how Americans have become understandably desensitized to his most extreme rhetoric, at the same time that he has taken a darker tone. Now he’s well past that level with barely a month to go before the election.

[From the January/February 2024 issue: Trump isn’t bluffing]

Picking the lowlight of the past few days isn’t easy, but it’s probably Trump’s suggestion that one hour of widespread, extrajudicial violence by the police would be an effective method of crime control. Perhaps that sounds like a caricature; if anything, trying to convey Trump’s ideas in normal language risks toning them down. Trump was speaking in Erie, Pennsylvania, and was in the middle of a riff about how crime is up (this is false, as I’ve reported), which he blamed in part on the police being prevented from being hard enough on suspects.

“The police aren’t allowed to do their job. They’re told: If you do anything, you’re going to lose your pension, you’re going to lose your family, your house, your car,” he said. “One rough hour, and I mean real rough, the word will get out and it will end immediately. End immediately. You know? It’ll end immediately.”

The idea sounds reminiscent of the Purge series of movies, set in an America in which all crime is legal for 12 hours once a year. The difference is that, in the films, this is presented as dystopian; for Trump, so long as the police are the ones acting lawlessly, it’s a shining ideal. (The former president has struggled to differentiate horror films from reality, as in his ongoing musing about “the late, great Hannibal Lecter,” the serial-killing cannibal from The Silence of the Lambs. He really is Ronald Reagan’s heir.)

[Read: Trump's new big lie]

Although he has long complained about restraints on police brutality, this goes beyond that. A campaign spokesperson told Politico it was a joke, which is a common excuse used by aides when Trump crosses the line. Nothing in his tone suggested levity. This is what I’ve called the Trump two-step, and it allows him to dangle an idea in front of his supporters while half-heartedly distancing himself from it.

Trump’s police-led Purge would violate—along with many statutes, common decency, and basic sense—the Fourth through Eighth Amendments to the Constitution. Trump’s rejection of the rule of law is comprehensive: He’s upset that people suspected of crimes like shoplifting aren’t prosecuted, yet he’s also furious that he is himself subject to prosecution when accused of crimes. Earlier this month, he promised retribution for those members of the law-enforcement community who have tried to hold him accountable, “which will include long term prison sentences.” In other words: They would lose not only their pension or car, but their freedom. He also promises to pardon those who ransacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Policing is only for those Trump hates. He and his friends get a pass.

In Erie, Trump immediately went—with no transition or connection—from this observation to reprising a line from the Wisconsin rally. “Crooked Joe Biden became mentally impaired, but lying Kamala Harris, honestly, I believe she was born that way,” he said. “There’s something wrong with Kamala. And I just don’t know what it is, but there is definitely something missing.” As with some past slurs, this is a remarkably efficient way to deliver an insult, offending the elderly, the mentally impaired, and Harris—who is neither—in one breath.

[Read: The Trump two-step]

The line was bad enough that it drew revulsion from Republicans after Trump first used it on Saturday. Yet Trump knows that they will tut-tut but otherwise stay strictly in line with him and then soon move on, which is why he used it again the next day. The second time wasn’t just a provocation to Harris and Democrats, but a reminder to Republicans of how powerless and sycophantic they are.

After Trump called Harris a “stupid person,” the crowd began chanting “Lock her up,” while Trump looked on in approval. Harris has not been charged, much less credibly accused, of any crime. Her offense here is presumably running against Trump.

Shall we go on? In Erie, he delivered an incomprehensible spiel about the viciousness of undocumented immigrants that compared them favorably with Hollywood stars, and ended with what may have been a line lifted from the comedian Jeff Dunham—“I kill you!”—though who can really tell? It’s one of the odder things I’ve ever heard Trump say.

Trump also claimed, yet again, and still without any evidence, that widespread fraud in vote counting occurs in large, heavily Black cities, including Philadelphia, Detroit, and Atlanta. “If God came down from high and said, ‘I am going to be your vote tabulator for this election,’ I would leave this podium right now, because I wouldn’t have to speak. We wouldn’t have any problem,” he said. This has been a banner year for candidates expecting divine intervention in their presidential campaigns, but most theologians would be surprised if God came down from on high to intervene in so secular a matter. It would be surprising if that was even his first concern regarding Trump.

[Read: The Trump campaign wants everyone talking about race]

And on Friday, Trump threatened to criminally prosecute Google for allegedly showing only bad stories about himself and good ones about Harris, which is a claim without evidence and, anyway, isn’t against the law. This threat is a good reminder that Trump has centered his election campaign on a pledge to use the power of the federal government to punish anyone who offends him. With material like this, is it any wonder that so many negative stories about him show up in a web search?

What’s not clear is why Trump is suddenly ranting and raving even more than usual. When Biden dropped out of the race and Harris replaced him, Trump lashed out, furious that his glide path to reelection had been disrupted. Now the election has stabilized somewhat. Polls indicate that the race is exceptionally close—some analysts think it could be the closest ever. Most data show Harris with a small but fragile edge. Although many Harris supporters despair that the race could be so close, this is an opportunity for Trump. By avoiding the most strident rhetoric that has consistently turned voters away from him, Trump might be able to close that gap and win. Instead, he is turning it up. Perhaps Trump is upset about something that isn’t apparent to outsiders. Perhaps he reasons that the most divisive subjects are actually winners for him, and perhaps he is right. Or perhaps he just can’t help himself.