‘I think the bigger problem are the people from within, we have some very bad people, sick people, radical left lunatics,’ Republican candidate tells Fox’s Maria Bartiromo

“And it should be easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military,” he said.

“I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within. Not even the people who have come in, who are destroying our country.”

It isn’t clear under what circumstances Trump would view it justifiable to call in US troops against his own countrymen.

But his comments mark a baseless attack and a particularly hollow one coming from someone whose supporters violently attacked the US Capitol in an attempt to stop him from being thrown out of office three years ago.


🗳️ Register to vote: https://vote.gov/

  • graphene@lemm.ee
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    10 hours ago

    So like, when was the last time someone said they needed to handle the “enemy within”?

    Oh wait

    A famous image of Joseph Goebbels, nazi propaganda minister

    I remember this from history class!

    • piccolo@sh.itjust.works
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      Them “stop calling everyone you disagree with a nazi!”

      Reasonable people: “then stop suggesting nazi shit?”

    • TriflingToad@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      I took World History Honors in Florida 2 years ago, pretty much learned nothing about the coming up of the Nazis. It was mostly memorizing the causes/effects of stuff like the industrial revolution or King Henry the 8th. However the teacher DID wear a Roman dress with a helmet and shield for the test day of the Roman empire so that was cool.

      Also completely unrelated but we only had to memorize the places of iirc 13 European countries and the big ones like Russia/China/India and that’s it.

  • bitjunkie@lemmy.world
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    15 hours ago

    The guy’s a nutjob and the fact that his candidacy is still being framed as having any air of legitimacy by the media is fucking disgusting.

    • Disgracefulone@discuss.online
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      Edit: any reason I got downvoted into the dirt for asking for a source on real polling numbers because I didn’t have time to do my own digging right at that moment?

      Not that downvotes generally bother me but JeeZe. Wasn’t even expressing an opinion just looking for clarification. And thanks to those who provided it.

      ORIGINAL

      All the polls I can find show them damn near dead even now.

      That was a 20 second search though do you have a source?

      • BCsven@lemmy.ca
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        12 hours ago

        Are the polls landline calls? If so you are going to get mostly boomers that still have a landline

        • TehWorld@lemmy.world
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          12 hours ago

          Almost all reputable polling groups have an all-the-above strategy. They also attempt to adjust for errors in polling due to things like the aforementioned “only old people have landlines” issue. Turnout is what ACTUALLY wins elections, and there are a LOT of people who will turn out for the orange turd, so we all need to make sure that we are turning out everyone we can too.

          • hydrospanner@lemmy.world
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            12 hours ago

            I’ve long felt that regardless of the levels of “we factored that into our results” that pollsters can accomplish, at the end of the day, these polls can only survey that demographic of “people who agreed to be polled”.

            That being said, I feel that Trump gets a slight advantage in any advanced polling thanks to his cult of personality: between Trump and any opponent thus far, a greater percentage of Trump’s followers are more likely to be “loud and proud” enough to want to have their voice heard by a pollster.

            I feel this effect is even more pronounced now, with a significant portion of the voting public falling into the camp of “conservative, but put off by Jan. 6th”. People who voted for Trump twice but who won’t this year. These people are also less likely to want to participate in polls.

            Where I feel this effect may have tricky implications is whether they stick to their beliefs in the polling booth or just cave in the final moment and still vote Trump…or if they simply don’t vote at the top of the ticket (or vote 3rd party)…but still vote for Republicans down-ticket.

            While I’m no pollster, I would not be surprised to find that Trump underperforms vs projections, even as the GOP overperforms in House and Senate elections.

            • WoahWoah@lemmy.world
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              9 hours ago

              In most research on this topic, democrats are more likely to participate in election polling. Nevertheless, modern polling weights their polls accordingly. They also do significantly more statistical weighting to correct for various types of effects that would increase polling errors.

              The biggest aspect to pay attention to this season is the use of “weighting on recalled vote.” It is the primary reason you’re seeing two distinct sets of polling results. Regardless of which set you look at, all highly rated polls show the election within the margin of error.

            • TehWorld@lemmy.world
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              11 hours ago

              I pray you’re right, and fear that you might be wrong. The “red wave” that was supposed to happen and was wrong last time gives me a small amount of hope.

              • WoahWoah@lemmy.world
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                9 hours ago

                That’s largely been corrected for. The “red wave” phenomenon was largely the result of democrats fretting about internal polling which is consistently biased toward the campaign of which it is “internal.”

  • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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    15 hours ago

    “dictator day one”

    “prosecute my opposition”

    “prosecute my critics”

    It seems insane to think people are shooting at him because they’re listening to democrats (something the MSM largely does not do) and not because people are just listening to the things he’s saying he’ll do.

    • OlinOfTheHillPeople@lemmy.world
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      14 hours ago

      It seems insane to think people are shooting at him because they’re listening to democrats

      I’m confused by this sentence. What do Democrats have to do with any of this?

      • Furbag@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        Trump has had multiple assassination attempts on him this year, and each time it happens Trump blames Democratic rhetoric as the motivating force.

        Of course, anybody who took even a cursory look into the motives of each would-be assassin (and let’s be frank, it’s a big stretch to call some of these guys assassins - getting caught with a loaded weapon near where Trump is located is apparently enough to be considered an assassination attempt, even if Trump was never in any danger) they are often Republicans who absolutely hate the Democrats, so they wouldn’t be listening to their political rhetoric anyway which has been nothing short of “Political violence is not the solution, let’s win at the ballot box in November.”

        Meanwhile, Trump is promising to be a dictator on day one, promoting eugenics, deploying the armed forces to deport legal residents, threatening to prosecute and jail his political opponents and revoke the 1st amendment rights of his critics, but refuses to answer calls to “turn the temperature down”.

      • dch82@lemmy.zip
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        14 hours ago

        I don’t know, some republicans think Democrats have something to do with this?

  • ChronosTriggerWarning@lemmy.world
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    19 hours ago

    “I think the bigger problem are the people from within, we have some very bad people, sick people, radical left lunatics."

    Yeah Don, we know. They even wear a red hat to help identify themselves.

  • TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee
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    20 hours ago

    So that’s how he plans to make the economy better, to force his opposition to leave the country and appropriate their wealth and property. Who did Nazi that coming?

  • LANIK2000@lemmy.world
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    20 hours ago

    Oh hey, treason man is yet again announcing publicly that he’s a treasonous piece of shit and that he plans to continue committing treason? Wow, what shocking news. /s

  • nifty@lemmy.world
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    20 hours ago

    This rhetoric is meant for voter intimidation because they know Republicans always lose when Democrats turn out to vote.

    The polls are meaningless because they could be manipulated or manufactured, we don’t know who’s being polled. People just need to cast their vote and not let this be a close election.

    • LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world
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      I will never express my opinions in places where I can be easily identified unless I am among people I know and trust. I will vote and keep my leftist ideology to myself amongst strangers irl. I rather like living without being bothered.

      • nifty@lemmy.world
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        20 hours ago

        There’s no such thing as living without being bothered in an autocratic regime, doesn’t matter who you are. You could be the most ardent supporter and you’d still be shit out of luck for any reason. Stalin used to have his own cabinet members routinely disposed of

        • LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world
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          20 hours ago

          I meant being bothered as in strangers harassing me for my beliefs lol. I live in a grossly red part of my state and I keep a low profile out of what I feel is necessity

          • Shark_Ra_Thanos@lemmy.ml
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            I do too but idgaf and start shit with anyone stupid enough to try with me. I made the religious sign holders leave Pride fest by simply talking absolute fucking nonsense with adamant of a mood. They left shortly thereafter. I was a volunteer for the event wearing the shirt and all.

            • LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world
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              15 hours ago

              I had a sign in my yard that said “support trans kids” someone peeled into my driveway, leaving huge ruts in the gravel/mud, and stole the sign one day when I wasn’t home. That’s when I decided to not voice my opinion openly like that anymore.

              • Shark_Ra_Thanos@lemmy.ml
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                6 hours ago

                Oh I would post it only when I was ready to fish for evidence and…well…yeah. Once we caught them, fry them for dinner

  • Freefall@lemmy.world
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    20 hours ago

    Soldiers are not obligated to follow unlawful orders…the brass will say “no”.

    • fadingembers@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      15 hours ago

      Unfortunately people as a whole tend to follow orders regardless of their political party or legality. It’s been studied and observed all throughout history

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        The officers already told Trump no. And when the National Guard was deployed for BLM protests they actually stuck to their ROE and didn’t deploy force recklessly like the police. Even when the police tried to get the NG in trouble with the people by dressing like them and then telling the NG they might as well.

        If the NG was ordered to show up at the polls they would most likely sit in a position a couple hundred meters away where most people won’t see them but they’d be able to respond rapidly. They’d force the governor to be more and more explicit in their orders until they got to an actually illegal one. For example if the NG has been called for law and order they would be under the same restrictions as the police in regards to polling places. (In many states police aren’t allowed to hang out there, they have to vote and leave unless someone specifically calls them and faking a call to get them there could count as election interference.)

        I know it’s hard to understand the military mindset from the outside looking in, but I guarantee you it’s not the robotic machine that Hollywood portrays. They are very conscious of their responsibility to the people.

        • fadingembers@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          13 hours ago

          You don’t think Trump will find people to do the job for him? Do you remember them black bagging and abducting people off the street in Portland during BLM? While the NG’s performance was commendable during that turbulent time, I wouldn’t rely on that fact staying true. Also I’m a vet and at least when I was in when we were given orders we weren’t told why we were doing them or given any context for them so in the heat of the moment that’s all you’re going to have to go off of.

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            This is at a level far above where we dwelled. It’s the guys with stars on their shoulders shielding the troops. And you’re correct, Trump did find willing lackeys, but he found them in Federal Law Enforcement. Most of them came from the Bureau of Prisons. He can’t openly recruit among the military the way he can among federal agents. So I’m pretty sure what will really happen, if he’s elected, is he’ll stand up that group of agents again, equip them heavily and just call them soldiers.

            Which is actually straight out of the dictator’s handbook.

      • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world
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        14 hours ago

        Its not as simple as that though, e.g. that electro shock experiment was rather shaky and subsiquent attempts to replicate it have all but falsified its results.

        What you have to do is cherry pick the small group of people that are willing to do awful things, you then get them to do those things in presence of the saner people who then feel guilty by association. After that you can use their lack of action to stop this awful thing as blackmail/guilttrip to get them to do some small awful thing of their own, and then repeat that process to get them to do increasingly awful things until everyone is just as bad as what was originally just a very small subset of that group. Importantly even though they’re doing awful things they still feel bad about it but they’re in too deep, this makes them even more effective than your original psychopaths because they know how they’re likely to be punished should your side loose which makes them fanatical in order to avoid punishment.

        Its a tried and tested process but not quite as simple as people just following orders.

        • fadingembers@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          13 hours ago

          We have innocent men being lawfully executed by the state in the current year. How many people in total were involved in those processes without a single one standing up for justice? Our current “liberal” presidential administration hasn’t uttered a single word in opposition to their murders

    • Clbull@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      How much support is there for Trump in the military though?

      I’m worried about the possibility that this kind of rhetoric could lead to an attempted coup or civil war.

      • FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        Really depends. In general officers tend to be mixed bag while enlisted soldiers tend to lean Trump.

        But it also depends the branch. In my experience most Marines tend to support Trump while the Navy and Airforce is more mixed.

        I’m sure you can get some statistics if you look it up. But it’s pretty certain the military leans more conservative than the general population on average.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        They lean conservative but not Trump. They voted blue in 2020 because the conservatives didn’t really come out to vote for him. They also have very complicated feelings about the Constitution and targeting Americans. So they probably would refrain from getting involved in anything but the most egregious conduct, like the Jan 6th insurrection, until we’re so far down the hole they can’t maintain unit integrity between left and right. At that point you’d probably see about a 60/40 split.

          • bitjunkie@lemmy.world
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            14 hours ago

            It may not be slavery by the purest interpretation of the meaning of the word, but what we have is still essentially “do shitty work you hate or starve and die in the street”.

    • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      Just cause the big guy called Trump a fascist doesnt mean there arent plenty of supporters down the chain of command.

  • InverseParallax@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    And polls continue to call the race a tie.

    At some point we have to acknowledge that roughly 30% of our population are just evil, fascist monsters. Having lived in those states, this isn’t a surprise.

    • Raiderkev@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      I’d say 20% are just absolute morons that watched ancient aliens and garbage like that back in the day then fell for every dumbass psyop conspiracy theory on the Internet. Now they are willfully ignorant of facts and truth.

      • Asafum@feddit.nl
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        15 hours ago

        Ughh you described my dad, except he’s still watching shit like that and skinwalker ranch… And yes he’s a full blown Magoo. :(

      • mostdubious@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        i don’t think it matters what their problem is. the solution is just to remove their ability to have a say in democracy.

        • mostdubious@lemmy.world
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          15 hours ago

          exactly. we have to stop them from voting. i don’t care how it gets done, but we really don’t have a choice. they have to be stopped.

          • InverseParallax@lemmy.world
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            22 hours ago

            The system in question:

            https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0065

            There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections.

            The south has a massive advantage in the electoral college because they demanded to be able to launder slave votes.

            • tmyakal@lemm.ee
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              16 hours ago

              The bigger problem is that the number of seats in the House has been frozen for about a hundred years. Our population exploded, but our number of representatives stayed static, so places with the most people actually get less representation in congress.

              On top of this, the number of electors a state has its equal to the number of representatives that state has in the Senate and the House combined. So more populated states also get underrepresented in the presidential election.

              The Three-Fifths Compromise was absolutely fucked, but it’s not what is deadlocking the House now and its not what is letting a people lose the popular vote and still go on to be president in 21st century elections.

              • InverseParallax@lemmy.world
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                15 hours ago

                If we took away the at large electoral seats, and the senate, that would get us halfway to fixing the representation problem.

                The house would be next, but that’s a more moderate problem compared to the other half.

      • InverseParallax@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Been in their churches, you hear the chorus loud and clear when he talks about ‘taking the country back from the powers of satan and other elitists’. He doesn’t mean Olympic athletes.

  • cultsuperstar@lemmy.world
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    21 hours ago

    He rambled on about immigrants at a rally and said election day will be our Liberation Day. Sounds like mass deportation and mass killing of liberals to me.

  • BigMacHole@lemm.ee
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    1 day ago

    This is EXACTLY what the Founders Intended! George Washington LITERALLY said that the US Military should be used on US Citizens and that Children should be Gunned Down in School!

    • spauldo@lemmynsfw.com
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      9 hours ago

      George Washington literally led the army against American civilians in the Whiskey Rebellion, so that’s probably not the best example.

    • Raiderkev@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      This guy in my discord I got into an argument with recently was going on about how he’s voting for Trump because he cares about the constitution. You can’t win with these clowns