For Trump, Domestic Adversaries Are Not Just Wrong, They Are 'Evil' deserving of prosecution, imprisonment, deportation

[Demovictory9]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/16/us/politics/trump-political-enemies-evil.html

For Trump, Domestic Adversaries Are Not Just Wrong, They Are ‘Evil’
The president’s vilification of political opponents and journalists seeds the ground for threats of prosecution, imprisonment and deportation unlike any modern president has made.


When the Pentagon decided not to send anyone to this week’s Aspen Security Forum, an annual bipartisan gathering of national security professionals in the Colorado mountains, President Trump’s appointees explained that they would not participate in discussions with people who subscribe to the “evil of globalism.”

After all the evils that the U.S. military has fought, this may be the first time in its history that it has put globalization on its enemies list. But it is simply following the example of Mr. Trump. Last week, he denounced a reporter as a “very evil person” for asking a question he did not like. This week, he declared that Democrats are “an evil group of people.”

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The characterization seeds the ground to justify all sorts of actions that would normally be considered extreme or out of bounds. If Mr. Trump’s adversaries are not just rivals but villains, then he can rationalize going further than any president has in modern times. Last month, he told a cabinet secretary to consider throwing her Biden administration predecessor in prison because of his immigration policy. Last weekend, Mr. Trump said he might strip Rosie O’Donnell’s citizenship for the crime of criticizing him.

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Asked about the possibility that Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for New York mayor, might try to stop immigration arrests, Mr. Trump said, “Well, then, we’ll have to arrest him.”

[Walleye]

1. Donald, is Putin evil?

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Witch trials loom as they root out "dissenters"

"Dissenters" being the reason the first settlers fled Europe, to practice their religion freely, even as they didn't like native beliefs or were intolerant of each other and of Quakers.

I think this makes Trumpism a religion. You must believe or else.

They burned witches at the stake, didn't they?

[surfered]

4. Nazis holding witch trials

[allegorical oracle]

3. The nano-second anyone holds djt accountable for anything, launches him into a

revenge orbit. As Melania put it in her first speech during his first term, "he hits back a thousand times harder."

His history is one of never accepting even mild criticism, much less being indicted on 30+ illegalities. Nobody should be surprised. He came into this second term enraged and determined to punish everyone he can.