Trump Calls for US Armed Forces, Natl Guard, Military to Handle 'Enemies' on Election Day; Sparks Outrage

- 'Trump sparks outrage after calling for army to handle enemies on election day,' The Guardian, Oct. 14, 2024. Ed. - Democrats condemn ex-president for saying armed forces should turn against ‘enemy within’ when voters go to polls
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Trump has provoked an angry backlash from Democrats after calling for the US armed forces to be turned against his political adversaries when voters go to the polls at next month’s presidential election.

In comments that added further fuel to fears of an authoritarian crackdown if he recaptures the White House, the Republican nominee said the military or national guard should be deployed against opponents that he called “the enemy within” when the election takes place on 5 Nov. He singled out the Calif. congressman, Adam Schiff, who was the lead prosecutor in the ex-president’s first impeachment trial, as posing a bigger threat to a free and fair election than foreign terrorists or illegal immigrants, his usual prime target for abuse.

Trump’s comments, to Fox News in response to a question on possible election “chaos”, triggered an angry reaction from Kamala Harris’s campaign, which likened them to previous remarks that he would be a dictator “on day one” of a 2nd presidency and his suggestions that the US constitution should be terminated to overturn the 2020 election result, which he falsely claims was stolen by Joe Biden.

Trump and the vice-president are locked in a tight contest as election day looms.

Most national polls put Harris narrowly ahead, but in the crucial swing states which will decide the election, the contest appears much tighter and offers Trump numerous paths to a potential victory. After initially saying election chaos would not come from his side, Trump launched a vituperative attack on his opponents when the interviewer, Maria Bartiromo, raised the possibility of outside agitators or immigrants who had committed crimes. “I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people,” he said on Fox’s Sunday Morning Futures programme.

“It should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by the national guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian and expert on fascism at NYU, told NBC that Trump was flagging up what he planned to do as president, which she compared to the “‘strongman’ ruling templates of Viktor Orbán, Narendra Modi and Vladimir Putin, the leaders of Hungary, India and Russia respectively. “He’s actually rehearsing, in a sense, what he would be doing as head of state, which is what Orbán does, Modi is doing, Putin has long done,”...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/14/trump-military-enemy-within-armed-forces-election-day