Donald Trump just outlined his solution to ending crime: allow for "one really violent day."
"See, we have to let police do their job. And if they have to be extraordinarily rough… If you had one day, like one really rough nasty day…" Trump suggested to his gun-toting MAGA disciples at a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania yesterday. "If you had one really violent day…one rough hour, and I mean really rough, the word will get out."
And the terror this would induce, Trump continues, would put an end to crime. "It will end immediately, end immediately. You know, it will end immediately." (See video below, posted by jimstewartson.)
Some commenters online compared Trump's plans to The Purge, the dystopian horror movie franchise about an annual day of federally permitted anarchy — including murder — to keep citizens in line. Others, however, argued that comparing Trump's fantasy to the fictional event was misleading, and that what the former president-turned-convicted-criminal describes is more akin to Hitler's Kristallnacht.
"Calling this 'The Purge' is lazy and wrong. Stop doing it. That's fictional horror about a day of anarchy," says the caption of a second post by Stewartson, following up on his earlier post highlighting Trump's pro-violence speech. "This is a demented retelling of Kristallnacht which is named after the broken glass from Jewish stores ransacked by Nazi SA and SS terrorists in 1938. It is not the same."
Call it what you will. Either way, if Trump wins in November, don't say he didn't warn us.
Previously: Trump plans to deploy military on Inauguration Day, seize government agencies, and purge critics
