Pritzker Warns That Trump’s Rhetoric Echoes That Of Nazi Germany | EUROtoday

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker blasted former President Donald Trump on Sunday over the Republican’s determination to explain his perceived enemies as “vermin,” stressing that such language is identical dehumanizing rhetoric that was utilized in Nazi Germany.

Earlier this month, Trump held a rally in Claremont, New Hampshire, the place he pledged to “root out the Communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections.” The 2024 GOP front-runner additionally posted an identical assertion to his social media platform, Truth Social.

Pritzker, a Jewish progressive, stated on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki” that Trump’s rhetoric, which will get echoed by his followers and far-right extremists, is identical rhetoric that “was used in the 1930s in Germany.”

“I am very concerned about the direction of the country if we see policies like what Donald Trump is espousing come to light for our country.”

Before his tenure as governor, Pritzker helped plan and fund the Illinois Holocaust Museum, aiming to create an establishment within the Midwest devoted to educating the general public on the Holocaust and different genocides.

Trump has used related rhetoric up to now to dehumanize and goal marginalized populations for his followers to direct their anger in the direction of. For years, the previous president has particularly used dehumanizing language to explain Black and brown migrants with a view to stoke worry in regards to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Recently, Trump stated that undocumented immigrants have been “poisoning the blood of our country,” and needs to be detained in camps.

Pritzker stated that Trump’s use of the time period “vermin” is “just one in a long series” of phrases that the previous president has used “that are unfortunately reminiscent of the past.”

“I don’t know where it’s going with Donald Trump. What I can tell you is that the things that he talks about are frightening to those of us who know the history of Europe in the 1930s and ’40s,” Pritzker stated.

“And I’m deeply concerned about his predilection for revenge and what that will mean for, you know, groups of people that didn’t support him in the 2024 election, if in fact he gets elected.”

Trump’s harmful rhetoric comes at a time that the U.S. is seeing an increase in hate-fueled violence, particularly antisemitic and Islamophobic assaults within the wake of the violence in Gaza. The governor stated he’s “deeply concerned about the rise of hate in the United States,” citing the October killing of a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy in Plainfield, Illinois.

“It’s just something that none of us should even fathom,” he stated. “And yet, it happened, and it happened in the wake of this war that’s happening overseas. And this young boy, killed, murdered, because someone had been radicalized by right-wing radio and right-wing television; that’s something we all need to pay attention to.”