Ahead of the second assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump, many influential actors, journalists, and influencers warned that Trump is an “existential threat” to democracy, compared him to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, and suggested he or his supporters should face violent attacks. Some continued attacking Trump even after the first assassination attempt July 13.
The New Tolerance Campaign, a nonprofit watchdog aimed at confronting “intolerance double standards” practiced by “establishment institutions, civil rights groups, universities, and socially conscious brands,” compiled a list of extreme rhetoric against Trump that may have contributed to the second assassination attempt.
“New Tolerance Campaign research has shown two kinds of consistent and consistently charged rhetoric surrounding President Trump: insistence that his reelection would lead to the collapse of the country, and calls for the former president’s death,” Gregory T. Angelo, New Tolerance Campaign’s president, told The Daily Signal in a written statement Monday. (New Tolerance Campaign has taken to exposing extremism on the Left, to balance the impact of left-leaning groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center.)
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“These proclamations aren’t sarcastic; they’re literal, and they’re being spoken by high-profile politicians and members of the mainstream media with massive audiences,” Angelo added. “It’s shocking that there have been two attempts on President Trump’s life, but not surprising given the existential hyperbole about him pounding Americans’ ears day in and day out.”
Other Violent Threats to Trump
Both Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, who authorities say shot Trump in the right ear July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, and Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, the man suspected of planning to assassinate the former president Sunday at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, got surprisingly close to the former president.
However, New Tolerance Campaign identified five others who faced charges for threatening to harm or kill Trump.
In January 2021, a judge sentenced 53-year-old Connecticut resident Gary Joseph Gravelle to nine years in prison after his conviction for sending a letter threatening to kill Trump in September 2018.
In January 2022, police arrested and charged New York City resident Thomas Welnicki, 72, with calling the Secret Service and threatening to kill Trump. He proclaimed that he intended to “stand up to fascism” by assassinating the former president.
In August, police arrested Arizona resident Ronald Lee Syvrud, 66, and charged him with threatening Trump’s life during the former president’s campaign trip to the Copper State.
In July, police arrested and charged Florida resident Michael M. Wiseman, 68, with making written threats to kill Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, after the assassination attempt in Butler.
Last month, police arrested and charged Illinois resident Justin Lee White, 36, with repeatedly threatening Trump, police, and Republicans with violence if the former president didn’t “play fair” during the election campaign.
Where would Welnicki get the idea that standing up to “fascism” involves targeting Trump? The full list of left-leaning pundits, celebrities, and politicians who compared Trump to Hitler would be too long to compile. But New Tolerance Campaign highlighted many examples, and The Daily Signal has narrowed them down to the list below. (The worst is at the bottom.)
None of the people in the list below responded to The Daily Signal’s requests for comment by publication time.
1. Shalom Auslander
Most Americans may not have heard of novelist Shalom Auslander, 54, but in 2016 he penned an op-ed in The Washington Post claiming that comparing Trump to Hitler “belittles Hitler.”
Auslander first claimed that Hitler had evil plans, while Trump is “just a con man,” but then the novelist suggested that Americans today are “like Hitler’s willing executioners.”
“Will we look the other way, say we didn’t know, stand silently by while millions of our neighbors are rounded up, while women who get abortions are ‘punished,’ while immigrants are given ‘ideology tests’ and our leader heaps praise on oppressive tyrants?” he wrote.
The writer didn’t suggest that Trump would round up Jews and send them to concentration camps, but he did suggest Trump would “round up” Americans’ “neighbors” in a similarly ominous way.
2. Linda Ronstadt
Rock and country singer Linda Ronstadt, then 73, explicitly compared Trump to Hitler in July 2019.
Ronstadt, who is of Mexican descent, recalled that when Trump first announced his candidacy for president, she predicted, “It’s going to be like Hitler, and the Mexicans are the new Jews.”
“And sure enough, that’s what he delivered,” she said. “It’s exactly the same.”
3. Joe Scarborough
Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” repeated the line that Trump posed an existential threat to America’s representative form of government.
Scarborough said last November that Trump “is running to end American democracy as we know it.”
“He will imprison, he will execute whoever he is allowed to imprison, execute, drive from the country,” the MSNBC host said of Trump, whom he called an “authoritarian.”
4. Robert Kagan
Also last November, political scientist Robert Kagan argued in The Washington Post that if Trump wins the 2024 presidential election the odds are “pretty good” that his presidency will “turn into a dictatorship.”
Kagan warned that the “Trump administration will have many avenues to persecute its enemies, real and perceived.” He suggested that, if elected again, Trump would prevent free and fair elections in 2026.
5. Rachel Maddow
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow compared Trump to both Hitler and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.
Last December, Maddow said Trump “keeps saying the kinds of things, the exact kind of things, that Hitler and Mussolini said.”
“There’s a reason Hitler and Mussolini said this stuff, too. It worked then, it works now,” she added. “It has worked abroad all over the world and yes, it has worked here, too. More than we like to remember.”
6. Will Stancil
Will Stancil, then a candidate for the Minnesota House of Representatives for District 61A, posted a suspicious question on the social media site X.
“So is there any reason [Joe] Biden couldn’t just drone strike Trump and end this,” Stancil, who currently has more than 89,000 followers, wrote in January. He then deleted the post.
This post arguably fits with an extremely negative view of those whom Stancil considers Trump’s supporters.
Stancil’s campaign platform stated that the candidate is “committed to listening to voices across the political spectrum—with a key exception.”
“For over a century, far-right extremists have not been motivated by sincere ideological belief but an inner desire to commit violence, dominate the weak, bully the unpopular, and mock the unusual,” his platform read. “Their policy commitments are typically insincere or even nonexistent; their motive force is the pleasure they take in causing pain.”
7. Keith Olbermann
In March, Trump said that the “hostile press” treats him worse than Abraham Lincoln. The Biden-Harris reelection campaign posted Trump’s clip, noting: “Trump says he has been treated worse than Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated.”
Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann reposted the Biden-Harris campaign video, saying, “There’s always the hope.”
Olbermann deleted the tweet and clarified that he hoped Trump gets treated badly, although his original post could be interpreted to mean that he hoped Trump got assassinated.
“I’m hoping Trump’s right, that he IS treated worse than Lincoln,” Olbermann said. “As I’ve said for 9 years: THAT HE’S CONVICTED, THEN DIES IN PRISON.”
8. Robert De Niro
In May, actor Robert De Niro echoed Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address by warning that “under Trump,” America’s current “kind of government will perish from the Earth.”
“If Trump returns to the White House, you can kiss these freedoms goodbye that we all take for granted,” the actor declared in a speech outside the building where Trump’s controversial trial for falsifying business records was taking place.
“And elections, forget about it. That’s over,” De Niro told reporters. “That’s done. If he gets in, I can tell. you right now, he will never leave. He will never leave. You know that.”
The month after the first Trump assassination attempt, on July 13, saw more extreme rhetoric.
9. Jacqueline Marsaw
A former congressional aide for Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., posted on Facebook that a potential Trump assassin should try not to miss “next time.”
“I don’t condone violence but please get you some shooting lessons so you don’t miss next time ooops that wasn’t me talking,” Jacqueline Marsaw wrote in the post.
Thompson said he fired Marsaw. His office didn’t respond to The Daily Signal’s request to connect with Marsaw for comment after the second assassination attempt.
10. Randi Weingarten
At the opening of the American Federation of Teachers convention in mid-July, AFT President Randi Weingarten condemned Trump as an “existential threat to democracy.”
Weingarten, head of the nation’s second-largest teachers union, spoke more than a week after the assassination attempt on the former president in Pennsylvania.
11. Billie Joe Armstrong
Billie Joe Armstrong, the 52-year-old lead singer of the rock band Green Day, lifted a Trump mask that many critics described as a “decapitated head” during a concert in Washington, D.C.
The mask had the word “idiot” scrawled on it.
12. Steven ‘Destiny’ Bonnell
Steven Kenneth Bonnell II, a 35-year-old influencer who goes by the name “Destiny” and gained a large audience by livestreaming video games on YouTube, said he did not have “much sympathy” for Trump supporters after the first assassination attempt.
“I don’t think I have much sympathy about the attempt enough to chastise people celebrating it,” he said.
Bonnell stood by this statement after English journalist Piers Morgan pressed him on it.
In a livestream video, Bonnell also stated: “I’m ready for the f**king great cleansing” when “we genocide conservatives in this country.”
Reprinted with permission from The Daily Signal by Tyler O’Neil.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
Bottom line — all the above persons have made statements that are well above the criteria of free speech. All statements made a real threat against a person and local and national law enforcement agencies should have already reacted and arrested such persons for their actions. Of course, DOJ is no longer an independent agency since it is already shown that it is a tool of an oppressive government.
Calling Trump a threat to democracy and comparing him to Hitler is definitely inciting violence. And I suspect that whatever is going on in Springfield, Ohio is being swept under the rug. Governor DeWine (RINO) has assured us that there’s “nothing to see here.” Considering his recent voting record and his progressive stance regarding parental rights, frankly, I don’t believe him. Bongino believes that there is someone in the Secret Service who is informing these radical extremists about where Trump is going to be and when. How else would this latest person know the time that Trump would be on the golf course and which hole he would be playing. I doubt we will ever really get the whole story, but I’m raising an eyebrow with this one.
What I don’t understand is why are these people allowed to continually speak such divisive and dangerous rhetoric without being confronted by the authorities. I would even include those former politicians and bureaucrats. One who comes to mind who just recently opened her vile mouth, Hillary.
You forgot to add Hillary Clinton’s name to the list of inciters.
The only “existential threat” to our country is from liberals in general, DemocRATS in particular, and “progressive” and “woke” political candidates.
These people are mentally ill and very dangerous.
I am so glad to see these women standing tall in their reasons for pointing out the hypocrisy of both sexes in their vitriol toward Donald Trump. I had begun to loose hope in my female partners who refuse join the panic prone public. Democrats are the party of vitriol and even the men are up to their necks trying to keep up with the women. Thank God for common sense. All it takes is to study what went on during Trump’s presidency and compare it across the board to the Biden Harris disaster. Biden was a puppet from the very day that Obama made him VP. I believed six months into the Obama presidency that the basement was absolutely loaded with rats. I never regretted a vote more than my first vote for Obama. He is a climber, Biden is and always was a climber. And, now we have Harris in the race. I have never seen a more unqualified woman of unearned power. All it takes is a read of her career positions and moves to know she’s a plant.
Yet all these jerks are uplifting and supporting the democrat appointee. She is.NOT a nominee, she was appointed. Seems democracy is already been lost. 14 million voters kicked to the curb, their voices silenced, ignored. They voted for Biden/ harris not for harris!!!!!
Can you imagine, for just a minute…..What if it was Trump or his handlers/supporters making these type of comments towards ANY democrat?
Trump a threat to Democracy? Completely laughable when the democRATS, first hide and covered up Bidens mental state, then just pulled the ole switch-A-roo, by installing the cackling wackjob.
Men in womens locker rooms, and competing against women in sports is what the democRATS brough us, along with 20 Million illegals that we, as taxpayers are supporting. Anybody, voting for any democrat needs their sanity checked
Those people that are comparing Trump with hitler are some sick puppies
Hitler murdered people. How can one be so deranged they actually believe their own hyperbole when they say Trump is worse than Hitler. Show me the evidence that what Trump did is worse than the millions of Jewish deaths. Or maybe these people are holocaust deniers?
These people are the only threat to democracy: they do not understand, nor do they care, that the United States is a Constitutional Republic. A free man is a citizen of the republic and he constitutes the government. In a democracy, the ultimate end is to end up as a subject, beholding only to the state and a tyrant. Which would you rather be?
this is what communists do they accuse someone else for what they are doing look at biden no laws are obeyed even the supreme court who is the dictator who is getting our soldiers killed biden not trump
It’s the Dem demonic WOKE Agenda that IS the WORST THREAT TO AMERICA we’ve ever seen. Their WOKE Agenda IS the Existential Threat to America like NOTHING ELSE.
Arrest them all!!
And then there is Jan.6 insurgency and incitement to violence. Where are those, who would not shut up about it. Very quit These nut jobs here are openly talking about murder and endorsing it.Imagine if it was democrat they were talking about. Hounds of hell would be unleashed .
I believe it was yesterday that H. Jefferies said :”Maga has to be stopped”. How are these people getting away with these threats? If I said anything like this the FBI would break my door down and arrest me.
This list is not complete. Biden and comrade Harris have done the same. So has Hagary Clinton.
That ‘s because not just this dirty dozen, but ALL leftists are liars, hypocrites and, most especially, projectors.
Instead of talking about this, tell all your Evangelical and gun carrying friends and neighbors to get out and VOTE for God’s sake. There is way too much complacency on the right’s side. If anyone watched President Trump on Gutfeld last night you would know that less than 20%-30% of these people actually vote. WHY??? If you don’t vote, you have no business complaining about the state of the country! If every gun owner and a person who believes in God would vote, we could wipe these people out of power. Get involved in saving this country!!!
Where do these kooks get these ideas of what President Trump stands for? Do they not see what is happening to our country with the current administration?
None of these loonies could (truthfully) give you ONE reason for their BS comments. Trump did NOTHING in his first 4 years to harm anyone or subvert their freedoms. Weingarten, who pushes the DIMMs death agenda of abortion, castration, and drugs, likes her large salary as AFT president while turning US kids into corrupt weaklings. Morning JOKE was kissing Trump’s posterior in 2016 until Trump didn’t kiss his! These losers are all-lies all the time!!
Maybe the fact that several people have been arrested for this rhetoric should be made known to the masses. Perhaps, this would deter some of the idiots, and nothing would be better than arresting one of the “famous” people that have made threats against Trump. Let’s not forget the whole simulated Trump head that Kathy Griffin sent out, she lost some gigs over it but it would have been better if she had been imprisoned. Same thing for Madonna, she should have been arrested, that would have slowed down the rhetoric, especially the violent threats. Want to scare a celebrity? Take their money or their free and easy lifestyle away from them. When they are forced to be one of the regular people and they don’t have fans running up to them telling them how great they are, they usually crumble. They are breaking the law after all, look at the “regular” people that have been imprisoned for making threats against Trump. If those people were locked up, celebrities should definitely be locked up, they carry more influence and therefore create a stronger threat to Trump or anyone else.
SEEMS All the sicko’s are in the Democrat Party and MAGA people are labeled as the loons by the leftist, communist inspired Democrats. The pattern they leave in their rants show they are the threat to the republic of America.
There were the 12 disciples of Jesus Christ, and now we have uncovered the 12 disciples of Satan, the Father of lairs and murderers. Each one is a reprobate who believes that evil is good, bitter is sweet, and dark is light.
DiNiro and his ilk talk tough- with security guards around them and the internet to isolate them. But they mean nothing in reality. Just noise that drowns out sanity. Ignorance abounds on the Left. Fantasy is their reality.
WOW!!! I know that there were a lot of mentally ill Dem-o-rats, but they must have been breeding in the cesspool swamp!!
It must be the Drugs that these morons are taking , making them believe the Bull crap that they are spreading.
When the Left talks about threats to “our democracy “,they are not referring to democracy as we understand it, rather they mean an oligopoly with them in charge.
DEPLORABLE INDIVIDUALS SPREADING THEIR VILE OPINIONS. NO FEDERAL AGENCY, HOWEVER, EVER KNOCKS ON THEIR DOORS. Two tier justice.
All these so-called “influensters” should have all their rhetoric directed back at them, for they are the folks who are “the existential threats to democracy.” They don’t believe in freedom of speech except for their own speech. The best thing to do is turn them off…they can’t force anyone to listen to them!! And their words are not worth listening to!! All of them seem to be legends in their own minds, and we all know where that ends up!!
Do they actually think we are so stupid that they can fool us? The poor things are describing themselves.
ARREST THEM ALL. GOES WELL BEYOND PROTECTIONS AFFORDED BY THE FIRST AMENDMENT.
Well it extremely obvious that none of these people have ever read the U.S.Constitution there is no where in the Constitution that the word. democracy is ever written. And these so called treasonists should even. be called U.S.Citizens.if a republican,veteran, or senior citizen ever uttered words like tat about a democratic candidate they would be put under the jail. And it’s become very apparent that there is no such thing as free speech in this country for anyone except democrats !!!!!
I detest that word “influencer”. They don’t/can’t influence me, only those undereducated and ill informed people wo lack rational thought.
I just saw Haris – WOW!!! She thot all she was doing was ‘being a smart-aleck’ to President Trump. She was questioning ‘what’s that going to look like?’ to Trump’s plan to immediately deport the millions of illegals now here in ’25! And she thought that the ‘optic’ of that happening would be TERRIBLE!!!
But she blew it! Because by ‘admitting to just how MANY ILLEGALS THERE ARE NOW’, she has just admitted to everything she’s been DENYING for 4 years! saying ‘the Border’s not open’, by saying ‘they’re doing a great job on the Border’, etc. ALL LIES!!!
NOW she’s ADMITTING TO THEM as PHONY!!! by admitting to the ‘impossibility’ of even TRYING to deport them back to where they came from! as though THAT’S THE CRIME of the century!!!
All these people are liars first class. Dumb as the nincompoops they are. We shouldn’t give them the time of day. It’s just those easily manipulated believe these dummies. The MSM goes along with it because they are the propaganda outlet for the regime currently in place. Who are being told by the elites at the WEF, which is run by the man by the name of Klaus Schwab. Tell me who the Hitler is in this country. If Trump was that bad why didn’t he do it when he was president. He is not taking your baby genocide away. He is amendable to let the states decide. This should not be coming from the White House. No one man should have the power to dictate when a life should end. This argument is the same as Kameltoe keeps saying no one politician should say when an abortion is allowed. Same argument different view point. They are talking reproductive rights. Nobody is taking that away. Just not when the baby is viable or after it is born. That is infanticide. Up to 6 weeks maybe. Why not teach them birth control. Abortion should not be used for that. With all the things available dialogue should be possible. But the left is a dictatorship their way is the only way. This is with the border problem, with all the wars going on. It takes a statesman to pick up the phone and start talks with your opponent in the world. The way they talk about Trump shows how much hatred they must have for Putin and Un not Xi they love him. When are talking heads on MSM and artists the brains in this country. Don’t listen they are dumb manipulators to get you to be a sheep to do their bidding. You matter, your thoughts matter. Don’t be a follower stand for something or you will fall for anything, as the song says.
The “tail wagging the dog”. All the haters are Democrats. Trump wants to preserve and enforce the Constitution. The democrats ignore, circumvent, and despise the fundamental premises of our nation.
AMAC, thank you so much for this post. Reading of this hate, contempt, lies, ignorance and worse… horrifies me. I am praying that Trump wins. I am an old German who understands very well what is going on. I cannot vote, but I can pray. These people have never heard or understood the sentence that Jesus spoke: ” Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Guess we all know who the real threats are! And it’s not President Trump.
when you are wealthy it is easy to tell others how they should live. but seldom do these wealthy people give up anything while advising you to. if you fall for their crap shame on you. if you follow their crap you need re education and if you vote for their “recommendations” you are unAmerican and need to relocate to any socialist/communist country you choose.
/
What a collection of nut cases & asylum refugees. Not a single explanation for their rants-just hyperbole-an excellent example of Projection
As much as I hate to say it, sometimes you have to fight fire with fire. We need to make their lives miserable. We just sit back and take it and they keep spewing hate.
these are sad people who lives must be miserable, or they are such narcissist’s that they think people care what they say. only a moron would care what these hacks say.
The liberal “influencers” aren’t just attacking Donald Trump, they are really assaulting any who are inclined to vote for the man. Those who call for the use of violence against a political candidate are really admitting that their candidate is too weak to win. It’s the voters who might vote for Trump that the Democrats and their liberal acolytes really fear and hate.
And that truth is what all socialists have struggled against since Karl Marx published his “Communist Manifesto” in 1848. Socialism was never popular with any American who earned his own way.The obvious reason? It’s the ordinary taxpayers who are forced to pay for the social engineering programs. Government support programs are nothing more than official charity for the competent and healthy citizens who are afflicted with the sin of indolence, (sloth).
I’ll say it right now, liberals, progressives, Marxists and communists are all peas in the same socialist pod. The adherents of these political theories have one idea in common, i.e. that taking from one who willingly works, and giving to one who would not, is a laudable government act. Needless to say, government checks are very popular with those who avoid work like it’s a four letter word.
Any person who might “sit out” going to the election poll instead of voting for Donald Trump will have no right to complain if the Democrats win the White House on November 5th. In that case, we will all witness four more years of American decline.
They are correct. Trump is a threat to mob rule. That’s what democracy is ultimately. The USA is a constitutional republic.
ARREST AND PROSECUTE THEM ALL FOR INTENT, PROMOTE, SUPPORT, ADVOCATE, OR BOOSTER TO MURDER TRUMP ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️
All of these people in this article are at fault if anything happens to President Trump or any of his family that includes Biden and Harris and these money pack people as well as the media there will be blood on there hands as if they care which they do not, there hate is nothing like anyone has ever seen before in this country.They are all evil and beyond evil with there actions.
ALL DOUCHE BAGS THAT I COULD CARE LESS ABOUT. ALL THINK THEY ARE ENTITLED AND KNOW BETTER.
Well I really don’t know what to tell you anti TRUMPERS,but look at the entities ruling AMERICA now.The government AKA democrats pretty well control our lives right now,it will get worse.