When Trump World tells you who they are, believe them

Team Evil and the pursuit of a "Unified Reich"

Reporting live from a secure undisclosed location deep in the Unified Reich….

A lot has been made of this faux pas and how it was created by someone (not named Donald Trump) who didn’t check the video and missed the “UNIFIED REICH” bit.

Of course, we can debate the hidden meaning of this and/or what it may mean, but when you pull together all the other authoritarian crap the Trump campaign has been putting out, along with Lord Stumblefuck himself, this feels like more than a “mistake.”

Was it deliberate? Was it an “Oops, we did it again!” moment? Or was it part of something more sinister?

I don’t have an answer to those questions, and I suspect that no one—not the candidate, the campaign, or the surrogates—will give a straight and honest answer before November 6. I know one very simple thing I’ve learned from long, hard experience—when they tell you who they are and what they’re going to do, believe them. There’s been far too much Nazi-related wordplay for this to be purely coincidental.

We’ve already experienced Trump’s authoritarian bent, so the fact that much of his intent is being telegraphed should hardly be surprising. Neither he nor his underlings are good at keeping secrets; they float trial balloons to see if an idea will fly. The response determines how—or if—things will proceed.

Trump is very poll-conscious, if not always poll-driven. He knows where he stands, even if the polls he tends to rely on are inaccurate because they skew to the right (e.g., Rasmussen).

Trump’s not hiding his reverence for Hitler and Mussollini, having called his perceived enemies on the left “vermin” and stating immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country," just like the two notorious European fascists did. And let’s not forget that Trump has dined with Nick Fuentes, an avowed antisemite, misogynist, homophobe, and racist influencer. Trump knew from that dinner and many other interactions with extremist supporters exactly what neo-Nazis want from him and how it’s a vote he needs to court….

A sentence referring to “the creation of a unified Reich” can be seen three times in the video. The images are sometimes quick and blurry, but clear enough for the discerning white supremacist movement, hungry for recognition. This is beyond bonkers, literally an admission that Nazi Germany is something to which Trump and MAGA are aspiring, at least in some capacity. You can’t argue anything else.

- Michelangelo Signorile

(Michael M. Santiago/Pool via Reuters)

It’s safe to say this is all pretty fucked up, but not unusual for a campaign that’s pretty fucked up on a good day.

This madness is truly some off-the-charts Third Reich shit that Dolt 45 and his campaign shouldn’t be let off the hook for. I’m having a hard time believing this was an honest screw-up, an “oops!” moment from a staffer while Donny Diaperfull was on a lunch break from his trial in Manhattan. There’s too much plausible deniability in that explanation.

Donald Trump’s Truth Social account has boosted a campaign video that spoke of a “unified Reich” in America if he reclaims the White House in the November election.

The 30-second video, which was finally taken down Tuesday after it remained up for 15 hours despite growing outrage, features a series of headlines predicting “what happens after Donald Trump wins,” with answers like, “Economy booms!” and “15 Million Illegal Aliens Deported.” One headline referenced the “creation of a unified Reich,” using a term meaning “realm” or “empire” that is usually associated with Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich in Nazi Germany.

The Biden campaign reacted to the video with alarm on Monday night, with campaign spokesman James Singer accusing Trump of “parroting Mein Kampf” in a statement posted to X.

“America, stop scrolling and pay attention. Donald Trump is not playing games; he is telling America exactly what he intends to do if he regains power: rule as a dictator over a ‘unified reich,’” Singer wrote.

Again, we should believe them when they tell us who they are and what they’ll do.

I fervently hope Americans realize what we’re up against and do the right thing. If that happens, Donald Trump should be so thoroughly embarrassed that he’ll never even consider running for President again. Then again, even if he does, he’ll be 82. If he’s showing signs of dementia now, what madness will four more years bring on?

Let’s not forget that his father died from dementia.

We have no definitive way of knowing the intent behind the ad. Perhaps it was an honest mistake, but I find it difficult to believe in fuck-ups of this scale in Presidential politics. Maybe it was a “we’ll drop it and maintain plausible deniability” situation in which Trump knew he could disclaim responsibility and throw a staffer under the bus; that’s a very Trumpian gambit.

I don’t believe in coincidences or mistakes in Presidential campaigns. Modern campaigns are enormous machines, with layers of redundancies built in to catch fuck-ups and human error. There’s too much at stake for things to happen without being double- and triple-checked.

No, this feels too much like something thrown out onto the Internet to create controversy while maintaining a degree of plausible deniability for Lord Stumblefuck. That way, it would be a dog whistle MAGAnauts could hear. Meanwhile, everyone else would be livid, even as Trump could blame a staffer and sacrifice them on the altar of public outrage.

Little happens by chance in a Presidential campaign. The degree of planning that goes into events and media buys is a firewall against unintended consequences, which is why this feels more deliberate. Considering the other things in the ad, the intent seems more solid.

A New York Times report added that video appears to have recycled “text from reports on World War I, including references to ‘German industrial strength’ and ‘peace through strength.’ One article in the video asserts that Mr. Trump would deport 15 million migrants in a second term, while text onscreen lists the start and end days of World War I.

“Another headline in the video suggests that Mr. Trump in a second term would reject ‘globalists,’ using a term that has been widely adopted on the far right and that scholars say can be used as a signal of antisemitism.”

The official defense is that an unidentified staffer promoted the video by way of the former president’s account, and the aide didn’t notice the “unified reich” references.

Team Trump’s pushback went on to say, “The real extremist is Joe Biden.”

No, really. That was the line.

Whether the Republican operation appreciates this or not, Trump hasn’t exactly earned the benefit of the doubt in this area. The presumptive GOP nominee has, after all, spent recent months echoing Hitler while lashing out at immigrants, complaining that immigration is “poisoning the blood of our country” and describing migrants as “vermin.”

Yeah, he’s not exactly a “uniter,” is he? No, Trump is exacerbating racial and ideological divides to his advantage even as he advocates violence along the way.

And there’s this:

[D]id I mention that Trump also dined at his glorified country club with a Holocaust-denying white nationalist a couple of years ago? And downplayed the significance of the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville? Because he did that, too.

“America, stop scrolling and pay attention. Donald Trump is not playing games; he is telling America exactly what he intends to do if he regains power: rule as a dictator over a ‘unified reich,’” James Singer, a spokesperson for Biden’s re-election campaign, said in a statement.

“Parroting ‘Mein Kampf’ while you warn of a bloodbath if you lose is the type of unhinged behavior you get from a guy who knows that democracy continues to reject his extreme vision of chaos, division, and violence,” Singer added.

Trump doesn’t intend to be a President for all Americans. He fully intends to be, first and foremost, the President who represents the interests of wealthy White Conservative Christian Cisgender Heterosexual Patriots.

In 2016, he successfully used this formula, winning the all-important Electoral College despite losing to Hillary Clinton by three million votes. In 2020, it didn’t work so well, and I think we can remember what his “Big Lie” led to. This time around, it’s the same tired message, just more of it, meaner and with a sharper edge. Trump is desperate to stay out of prison, and winning the Presidency is his sure-fire ticket to freedom.

Nice work if you can get it, eh?

Here’s to hoping that his racist, narcissistic, and sociopathic ass is allowed to rot in prison. I don’t care which one, but seeing him given a sentence long enough to shed his mortal coil in prison would be excellent. It would be an appropriate end to a truly miserable and pointless life.

When he’s gone, we can set about erasing any trace of his existence. That seems a fitting denouement.

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