MaddowBlog-'Hating' Democrats apparently wasn't enough: Trump says political foes are 'evil,' too

[LetMyPeopleVote]

With increasing frequency, the president has begun referring to journalists and political opponents as "evil." Such talk is unusual, radical and dangerous.

A lot of folks might not fully appreciate just how frequently Trump accuses Democrats and other Americans he doesn’t like of being, in his words, "evil people," whom he considers worthy of his "hatred" tinyurl.com/w82st8u2

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-09-11T15:47:30.841Z

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/hating-democrats-apparently-wasnt-enough-trump-says-political-foes-are-rcna219622

This week, at a White House Faith Office luncheon, the president went even further — condemning Democrats as “evil.”

Trump on Democrats during his speech to a faith group: "They're evil people in many ways."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-07-14T17:40:20.241Z

......As the New York Times noted in an analysis published this week, “evil” is a word “getting a lot of airtime in the second Trump term.”

It is not enough anymore to dislike a journalistic inquiry or disagree with an opposing philosophy. Anyone viewed as critical of the president or insufficiently deferential is wicked. The Trump administration’s efforts to achieve its policy goals are not just an exercise in governance but a holy mission against forces of darkness.

It’s an important detail. Intense partisan fights are not new to the American tradition, but it’s not normal for a White House to explicitly go to the public with a message rooted in the idea that its political opponents represent forces of unholy malevolence......

It’s against this backdrop that the incumbent president, using language foreign to American ears, wants the public to believe that journalists and his partisan opponents are not only worthy of “hatred,” but should also be seen as “evil.”

Such rhetoric is dangerous, and it fuels the kind of radicalism that has become the new normal at the White House.