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A couple of weeks ago, on Veterans Day, Donald Trump used his social media platform to cross a new rhetorical line. In honor of those who’ve served in the military, the former president published a missive in which he vowed to “root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our Country, lie, steal, and cheat on Elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American Dream.”
The Republican proceeded to echo his message soon after at an event in New Hampshire.
His reference to “vermin” was an unusual word choice for Trump, but as we discussed soon after, as he removed all subtlety from his authoritarian vision, it reflected a new normal for the GOP’s most powerful figure.
Almost immediately, observers noted that the phrasing has unsettling historical antecedents. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an NYU historian, told The Washington Post that “calling people ‘vermin’ was used effectively by Hitler and Mussolini to dehumanize people and encourage their followers to engage in violence.”
And yet, Republicans didn’t much seem to care. “I don’t use that kind of language, but it’s a free country,” Sen. Lindsey Graham told HuffPost. Six days after Trump’s initial comments, former Ambassador Nikki Haley managed to tell an Iowa audience, “I don’t agree with that statement,” which hardly constituted a stinging rebuke.
The former president had inadvertently created a test of sorts for his party: Would Republicans look the other way as he embraced dehumanizing language previously espoused by Hitler? The answer, evidently, was yes.
But I was also curious how rank-and-file GOP voters would respond to the controversy. Using data from FiveThirtyEight’s polling averages, here’s what happened:
On Nov. 11, the day Trump first described Americans he doesn’t like as “vermin,” he had 56.6% support in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, and he had a roughly 43-point advantage over next closest rival.
On Nov. 14, after the public saw headlines that referenced Trump and Hitler in the same sentence, his national support ticked up to 58.6%, and he had a roughly 45-point advantage over next closest rival.
On Nov. 25, two full weeks after the “vermin” rhetoric, Trump’s national support inched higher to 60%, and he had a roughly 48-point advantage over next closest rival.
To be sure, the data comes with some caveats. The survey shifts were, for example, relatively small, and there are plenty of variables that can cause modest shifts in national polling.
That said, it’s fair to say that the controversy surrounding Trump’s “vermin” rhetoric didn’t hurt his 2024 candidacy at all. His rivals largely ignored the story; GOP members of Congress largely ignored the story; and Republican voters apparently didn’t much mind, either.
It’s possible that much of the party’s electorate, which often relies on conservative media, didn’t hear about the rhetoric. But it’s also possible that GOP voters learned about Trump targeting Americans with dehumanizing rhetoric, and they were fine with it.