The purpose of constantly invoking the specter of a dictatorship under Trump is to condition Democrats to react violently if Harris loses.
By now it’s commonplace to note that Kamala Harris often seems out of her depth, like she’s unsure what to say about policy, or how to explain her past positions, or why she hasn’t already done the things she’s promised to do if she’s elected given that she’s the current vice president.
But on one particular subject she’s been consistent and forceful throughout her campaign. She’s adamant that Donald Trump will destroy America if he’s reelected. And not “destroy” in the sense of enact bad policies, but that he’ll round people up with the military and put them in camps.
At a campaign rally in Pennsylvania this week she told the crowd that former President Donald Trump considers anyone who doesn’t support him to be an enemy of the United States. “He is saying he would use the military to go after them.”
Earlier this week, during an audio town hall with Charlamagne Tha God, Harris claimed without a hint of irony that if Trump is elected he’ll use the Department of Justice “as a weapon against his political enemies,” adding, “You know who does that? Dictators do that.” At one point during the show, she agreed with a caller who said Trump will lock “anyone who doesn’t look white into camps,” replying, “You’ve hit on a really important point and expressed it I think so well.”
That’s just a sampling from this week, but there are many other recent examples. In the waning weeks of the presidential election, Harris has been deploying increasingly extreme rhetoric about Trump and the dangers he poses to the country. Even before Harris seized the Democratic nomination from President Joe Biden, the idea that Trump is an existential threat to American democracy was the refrain of the Biden campaign. Harris has taken that theme and run with it.
The purpose of it isn’t just to scare voters into casting their ballot against the former president, or to provoke some unstable would-be assassin into taking a shot at Trump (although some Democrats no doubt see that as a happy by-product of this Trump-as-dictator rhetoric).
Its main purpose is to prime Democrat voters for violent resistance should Trump win in November.