An editor at The Atlantic argued Wednesday night that former President Donald Trump is using unsavory language to "bait critics" as part of his closing argument.
Isabel Fattal noted Trump's so-called "closing argument isn't a closing argument at all." Rather, she said, it's an "invitation" meant to distract Vice President Kamala Harris from her final pitch.
She pointed to Trump's rally Sunday night at Madison Square Garden, which included speakers making racist and sexist remarks, including a comedian calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” Trump has insisted he had no idea the comedian would make the joke, even amid reports his campaign reviewed the speeches and even nixed a different joke that would've used a sexist slur to describe his opponent.
"This incendiary language is not only a crude attempt to bait critics; it’s part of a pattern of hate from Trump and his closest allies, and a type of rhetoric that Trump has made clear he intends to incorporate into his plans as president," wrote Fattal. But in continuing to push the lines of decency in American politics, Trump is also attempting to goad the opposition."
His campaign, she said, is geared toward having him make an inflammatory statement, then blame Harris or the media for overreacting even as he tries to rewrite history.
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"After he told the Fox News anchor Sean Hannity that he wouldn’t be a dictator 'except for day one,' he later said that he was just joking, in an effort to cast those who took him seriously as dramatic," wrote Fattal.
She called it an example of what a colleague coined as "trolligarchy" or the idea that a "troll reserves the right, always, to be kidding."
The Trump campaign, she said, takes gleeful pleasure in provoking and then seizing on "dramatic reactions" from critics.
"Harris and her team will make a much stronger closing statement if they refuse to give Trump the satisfaction of being their campaign’s main subject," said Fattal." But it’s also up to the American voting public to resist being baited by the outrage that Trump stokes, and to refuse the path of vengeance that he represents."
