Trump’s Rhetoric Inciting Racial Hatred and Violence in Final Campaign Days, Writer Warns

Former President Donald Trump is falling back on a familiar and dangerous tactic as his campaign faces increasing challenges — stoking racial hatred and inciting violence. According to Salon’s Chauncey DeVega, this is the lens through which Trump’s recent promotion of a harmful lie about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, should be viewed.

Trump’s claim that Haitian migrants are “eating people’s pets” has caused a wave of harassment and even bomb threats targeting the Haitian community. DeVega argues that this is no accident, but part of a larger pattern Trump has used throughout his career — using fear, racism, and falsehoods to rile up his base.

Despite the turmoil and danger his comments have triggered, Trump has doubled down. At a recent rally in New York, he intensified his inflammatory rhetoric, telling a horrifying story about “young American girls being raped and sodomized and murdered by savage criminal aliens.” These remarks follow the same playbook Trump has used for years: dehumanizing immigrants, portraying them as dangerous criminals, and blaming them for societal problems.

“Shocked and Disgusted”

DeVega highlights how Trump’s actions have drawn widespread condemnation. “The mainstream news media and political class — and many among the general public — are responding with shock and disgust that Trump and his agents would traffic in such obvious white supremacist and racist conspiracy theories that are dehumanizing and inciting violence against innocent people,” he wrote.

However, DeVega points out that the shock alone misses the broader context. Trump’s attack on the Haitian community is not an isolated incident, but part of a much older and darker history of white supremacy in the United States. This history includes countless examples of racial violence and conspiracy theories being used to maintain power and control, particularly in times of demographic change.

DeVega ties this to Trump’s larger campaign, which has frequently targeted Vice President Kamala Harris with both racist and misogynistic undertones. In his view, these attacks are symptomatic of a long tradition in American politics that seeks to demonize people of color to stoke fear and division.

“A Playbook of Racial Panic”

The columnist draws comparisons between Trump’s tactics and other notorious episodes of racial fearmongering in U.S. history. “Trump’s lynching and white vigilantism appeals are part of his strategy of eliminationist rhetoric about non-white migrants, immigrants, and ‘illegal aliens’ where he promises, like Hitler, to purify the blood of the nation by purging the human vermin,” wrote DeVega.

This disturbing rhetoric is further amplified by the locations Trump chooses for his rallies. By holding events in former “sundown towns” — areas that historically used violence and threats to exclude nonwhite people — Trump is sending a clear signal. His rallies in these locations evoke a past in which laws and terror worked together to enforce racial segregation and exclusion.

“The Stakes Couldn’t Be Higher”

DeVega warns that the stakes in the current political climate are incredibly high. “Donald Trump, his MAGA movement, and the other neofascists are enemies of multiracial pluralistic democracy and the good society,” he asserts. He calls on Vice President Kamala Harris and the political media to take action less than 60 days before Election Day.

They must make it clear to voters that Trump’s authoritarian movement threatens the very fabric of American democracy. DeVega’s final message is urgent: unless this dangerous rhetoric is exposed and confronted, Trump could return to power, bringing further division and pain to Americans on both sides of the racial divide.

In the final stretch of his campaign, Trump’s rhetoric has not softened — it has escalated. DeVega’s analysis presents a stark warning: this is not just political theater, but a deliberate strategy to fuel hatred and violence. The question now is whether the public will see through the fearmongering and reject it, or whether Trump’s dangerous words will continue to inflame an already divided nation.