A concerning poll revealed a dark truth about America

Polling results regarding Donald Trump’s most recent rhetoric have revealed a dark truth about the United States. Words from Trump that drew comparisons to Adolf Hitler might be helping the former president politically. 

The former president has always been beloved by his core supporters for his bombastic willingness to challenge and attacks his political enemies. But Trump’s public comments have taken a darker turn over the previous two months. 

In November 2023, Trump was criticized by the mainstream media for things that he said during his Veterans Day speech in Claremont, New Hampshire according to Mediaite. Specifically, it was Trump’s comment on rooting out America’s vermin. 

“We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections,” Trump said according to The Washington Post. 

The word vermin and the context in which it was used is what captured the attention of a wide range of experts, including Timothy Naftali, a Senior Researcher at the University of Columbia, who said that the language was the same as what dictators used to instill fear. 

“When you dehumanize an opponent, you strip them of their constitutional rights to participate securely in a democracy because you’re saying they’re not human. That’s what dictators do,” Naftali explained ot The Washington Post. 

Another recent incident saw the former president embroiled in more controversy after he said that immigrants coming to the U.S. were “poisoning the blood of our country,” which saw the Biden campaign liken him to Hitler according to NBC News. 

“Tonight, Donald Trump channeled his role models as he parroted Adolf Hitler, praised Kim Jong Un, and quoted Vladimir Putin while running for president on a promise to rule as a dictator and threaten American democracy,” Ammar Moussa said in a statement. 

“Trump is not shying away from his plan to lock up millions of people into detention camps and continues to lie about that time when Joe Biden obliterated him by over 7 million votes three years ago,” Moussa added according to The Hill. 

However, while these two incidents may have angered many, they may have also worked to help the former president in his race to win the GOP Presidential Nomination according to a poll from NBC News, the Des Moines Register, and Mediacom. 

The poll, which surveyed 502 GOP caucus goers, was conducted between December 2nd and the 7th, and asked participants to rank eight statements the former president made by whether they would make the person more or less likely to vote for Trump. 

Mediaite put together a good breakdown of the top three most important statements as they pertained to Trump’s worrying rhetoric and noted that in all of the three cases, the statements made caucus goers more likely to support Trump. 

When asked about Trump’s comments on rooting out “radical left thugs that who live like vermin,” 43% of respondents said it made them more likely to support Trump while 32% noted it didn’t matter and 23% reported it made them less likely to support Trump. 

Trump’s comments about immigrants poisoning the blood of the country made 42% of people polled more likely to vote for him whereas 29% said the comments didn’t matter and 28% noted the remarks made it less likely they would vote for Trump. 

Finally, when asked about comments Trump made on authorizing “sweeping raids, giant camps and mass deportations,” 50% reported they made it more likely that they would vote for Trump while 22% said it didn’t matter and 27% noted it made their vote less likely. 

While it was a small sample size, the polling nevertheless revealed that there are those in the country who not only like like the former president’s worrying new rhetoric, but it also makes them more willing to vote for him.