The 1 Seemingly Harmless Word Trump Keeps Weaponizing
HuffPost
Once you know this, you won't be able to unhear it.
It’s safe to say that President Donald Trump was not happy when he got wind of the results from election night. The president was already resuming his standard messaging in his remarks ahead of a breakfast with GOP senators on Wednesday morning.
“They’re going to pack the court. They’re gonna make D.C. a state and they’re gonna make Puerto Rico a state,” Trump said of what Democrats would do if they see similar success in the midterms. “So now they pick up two states, four senators. They’re gonna pick up electoral votes. It’s gonna be a very, very bad situation.”
This messaging is nothing new for the president. So much of the rhetoric throughout both his campaigns and his time in office has hinged on the practice of defining that there is a clear “other” to his base — in this case, a “they” that can turn neighbors into this amorphous boogeyman that threatens their very way of life.
Coming from the top down, the “Us vs. Them” mentality can stoke some additional fear and anger between community members who often want many of the same things (like being able to afford to live).
HuffPost reached out to some experts in both psychology and politics to get a better understanding of why this kind of rhetoric is so common in our current political environment — and the real, lived-in harm that comes from having it consistently coming from our leadership.
