Democrats' reckless, rage-filled rhetoric could have deadly consequences

Every college freshman discovering beer or marijuana for the first time has had the discussion regarding what they’d do if they could go back and kill “baby Hitler.” It’s a rite of passage. 

What act would not be justified if you were all that stood between Adolf Hitler and the atrocities he and his government would go on to commit?

Well, Democrats are offering a non-stop flood of rhetorical flourishes that sounds a lot like a call to arms. When you incessantly call your political opponents Nazis, you may already be inciting someone to remove Trump (or Elon Musk) from the field of politics in a non-electoral fashion.

I do not say that lightly, but with the full knowledge of how controversial the idea is. We have sitting members of Congress calling for “war” and declaring the end of democracy. So what other conclusion would they have us draw?

There were two credible attempts on Trump’s life during the 2024 campaign, intermixed with so many progressive declarations that Trump was Hitler reincarnated. Each time Trump survived, Democrats would awkwardly cover their rear ends by condemning “all political violence” — a phrase which, for the left, is increasingly the 2024 equivalent of "all lives matter" circa 2015 to 2020.

And days later, Democrats could still be counted on to go back to their strategy of occupying the rhetorical space between disingenuous hyperbole and dangerous incitement to violence.

With the Department of Government Efficiency sweeping through government, racking up victory after disruptive victory, you would think all elected officials would be grateful for their work uncovering waste, fraud and abuse. Democrats are not happy about it at all.

They’re like the ex you had who always focused on your flaws, never on your virtues. That person never loved you. Likewise, Democrats never cared about taxpayers being ripped off by wasteful and fraudulent government spending. 

In the case of DOGE, Democrats will defend every wasteful expenditure as a matter of life and death. They aren’t trying to (and won't) convince the general public — they are just trying to maintain their base of supporters. (Honestly, go watch them sing this union song about Musk and DOGE, and ask yourself whether anyone involved expects to win a single convert.)

Democrats, in and out of the media, are seeking to keep their dwindling base outraged. And the problem with keeping a large group of people in a frenzied state for your own advantage is that heated pots eventually boil over.

James Hodgkinson was one such pot — a progressive activist, devoted Rachel Maddow fan and Bernie Sanders supporter who believed the lie that Republican health care and tax plans would kill 10,000 people per year. That’s why Hodgkinson tried to murder as many Republican members of Congress as possible on a Virginia baseball field in 2017. Only his poor aim and the fast-acting security detail for Majority Whip Steve Scalise prevented a massacre.

As for Thomas Crooks — you may not even know that’s the man who shot Trump in the ear in Butler, Pa. — we know no more today than we did the day following his attempt on Trump's life. There may be another such story there. We may learn more this fall, at trial, about the motives of second alleged assassin Ryan Routh, a registered Democrat voter and donor and pro-Ukraine activist.

After a few weeks of post-election despair and bargaining, Democrats are turning the rhetorical rage dial back up to 12. In lieu of making counterarguments or winning people to their side with reasoned criticisms of Trumpian overreach, they have returned to the old sky-is-falling-reductio-ad-Hitlerum playbook, and without much concern for the potential consequences.

Derek Hunter is host of the Derek Hunter Podcast and a former staffer for the late Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.).