Donald Trump broke new ground in his criticisms of Americans last year when the former president released a video in which he argued, among other things, “[T]he greatest threat to Western Civilization today is not Russia. It’s probably, more than anything else, ourselves and some of the horrible, U.S.A.-hating people that represent us.”

Months later, in a Veterans Day message, the Republican not only referred to many Americans as “vermin” — phrasing that echoed Hitler and Mussolini — he concluded, “The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave, than the threat from within.”.....

That was new, but it wasn’t the most unsettling comment on the subject. The Washington Post reported:

Former president Donald Trump said in an interview that aired Sunday that he is worried about the prospect of unspecified actions by what he dubbed “radical left lunatics” on Election Day, urging that the National Guard or U.S. military be deployed on American soil against those he labeled “the enemy from within.”

.....In the next breath, in an apparent reference to Election Day concerns, the Republican concluded, “It should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard — or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”

Link to tweet

.....Trump, meanwhile, has gone from describing many Americans as “evil” to condemning them as “vermin” to equating them with the foreign enemies to labeling them “the enemy from within” — who might even warrant some kind of military response.

Eight years later, “basket of deplorables” seems almost quaint.