You know what? Donald Trump and the MAGA world are absolutely right. Someone in American politics needs to seriously tone down the dangerous, violent, dehumanizing rhetoric. The kind of language that treats political opponents not as fellow citizens with different views, but as existential enemies who must be defeated, punished, and destroyed.

Language like this:

“The enemy from within is more dangerous than the foreign enemy.”

“They are bad people… vicious people that we have to fight, just like you have to fight vicious people.”

“They are scum… they should be held accountable for their dangerous rhetoric.”

“We will root out the fascists and the radical thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”

“These are people that are destroying our country… demonic forces.”

“They are sick, they are so evil.”

“These radicals are directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today.”

“They’re a threat to democracy, and we’re going to treat them as such.”

“They’re destroying our country.”

“The radicals need to be dealt with.”

“Hang them — George Washington would.”

Absolutely disgraceful. Whoever is saying things like that should be held accountable immediately. That kind of language has no place in American political discourse. It dehumanizes. It incites. It pushes people toward violence.

So who said all of it?

Donald Trump. About Democrats. In his own words. On camera, at rallies, on Truth Social, and in official statements from the President of the United States.

A couple of those required minor edits to remove specific references to “the left” or “Democrats” — but the substance is unchanged, and anyone who has spent five minutes paying attention to this president already recognized the voice before they finished the second quote. The small vocabulary and the childish cadence are unmistakable.

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Since Karoline Leavitt apparently needs a list, here is a partial record of the specific labels this president has applied to Democrats and his political opponents. Not paraphrased. Not out of context. Documented, timestamped, and delivered by the President of the United States:

Radical left. Radical left thugs. Thugs. Vermin. Lunatics. Sick people. Deranged radical left. Corrupt politicians. Crooked politicians. Criminals. Traitors. Seditious people. Enemy from within. Enemies of the country. Marxists. Communists. Socialists. Left-wing extremists. Haters of our country. Destroyers of America. Demonic forces.

That is not a complete list. That is a partial list compiled without breaking a sweat.

Now — and this is a direct challenge that deserves a direct answer — show us one instance of a high-ranking Democrat calling for the literal execution of a political opponent. One. With a source.

Because Trump has called for the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to be executed. On his social media platform. With his name signed to it. As the sitting President of the United States.

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Here is the argument being made by the White House, by conservative media, and by Trump’s surrogates in the days since the Correspondents’ Dinner shooting: Democrats who call Trump a fascist, a dictator, or a threat to democracy are using dangerous rhetoric that incites violence and must be silenced.

Here is the problem with that argument stated as plainly as possible.

Calling Trump a fascist is not rhetoric. It is a description. Fascism has a definition. Political scientists, historians, and constitutional scholars across the ideological spectrum have applied that definition to Trump’s behavior and found substantial overlap. Calling a president who demands personal loyalty oaths, fires oversight officials, weaponizes the Justice Department against political enemies, attacks the free press as enemies of the people, pardons political allies, and refuses to accept election results a fascist is not inflammatory language designed to incite violence. It is an accurate characterization of documented behavior.

Calling him a threat to democracy is not rhetoric. It is a factual statement supported by the January 6th insurrection he incited, the 60-plus court cases he lost trying to overturn an election he lost, and the ongoing effort to delegitimize any electoral result that doesn’t favor him.

Calling him a dictator is not rhetoric. It is a description of a man who has claimed his executive power is absolute, declared the War Powers Act unconstitutional, waged an unauthorized war for over 60 days without congressional approval, and fired anyone who exercised independent oversight of his administration.

The people saying these things are not inciting violence. They are describing reality. And demanding they stop — using the language of “dangerous rhetoric” to silence accurate political criticism — is itself the authoritarian move they’ve been warning about.

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It is also worth noting something that tends to get buried in these conversations: American politics was not always like this.

Political disagreement is as old as the republic. Passionate, heated, sometimes ugly disagreement has been part of American democracy since its founding. But the specific character of what we are living through now — the dehumanization, the “traitor” labels, the calls for execution, the language of vermin and demonic forces — entered mainstream American political discourse at a specific and identifiable moment.

The moment Donald Trump took over the Republican Party.

Not because Democrats changed. Not because the media changed. Because Trump introduced a political style that does not recognize a legitimate opposition — only enemies. In his framework, you are either completely with him or you are a traitor. There is no loyal opposition. There is no agreeing to disagree. There is no principled Republican who votes their conscience.

Don’t take our word for it. Ask Liz Cheney — one of the most conservative members of Congress in modern history, daughter of a Republican vice president — what happened to her career when she voted to impeach Trump for inciting January 6th. Ask Thomas Massie, who has faced Trump’s wrath for voting his libertarian conscience. Ask Marjorie Taylor Greene, who went from one of Trump’s most fervent supporters to being called a “traitor” the moment she criticized his Iran war.

These are not Democrats. These are Republicans. And Trump treats them exactly the same way he treats everyone who steps out of line — with the same labels, the same attacks, the same demands for punishment.

That is not normal political disagreement. That is a cult of personality that has consumed an entire political party and is now consuming the institutions of the government itself.

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So yes. The dangerous rhetoric problem in American politics is real. It deserves serious attention. It should be addressed urgently and honestly.

Start with the man who called his opponents vermin. Who said Democrats are demonic forces destroying the country. Who suggested George Washington would hang them. Who labeled the free press enemies of the people. Who told the Proud Boys to stand back and stand by. Who sent a mob to the Capitol and watched it unfold on television for three hours without picking up the phone.

When that man tones down his rhetoric, the conversation about everyone else’s will be worth having.

Until then, the rest of us will keep telling the truth about what we see.

And we will not apologize for it.