Eric Trump Says Democrats Are "Not Even People"

[Content Note: Dehumanization; violent rhetoric; disablist language.]

Appearing on Fox News with Sean Hannity last night, Eric Trump, the son of Donald Trump, went off on an angry rant against Democrats, calling Tom Perez a "whack job" and engaging in rank dehumanization, saying that people who oppose his father's administration are "not even people."

Eric Trump, the son of the President of the United States, says Democrats aren't even people. pic.twitter.com/2uhP8o8579

— Yashar Ali (@yashar) June 7, 2017

ERIC TRUMP: Hey, Sean, how are you?

SEAN HANNITY: Don't you wish you went to Washington, so you could be dealing with this every second of every day?

TRUMP: You know, I've never seen hatred like this. I mean, to me, they're not even people. It's—it's so, so sad. I mean, morality's just gone. Morals have flown out the window. We deserve so much better than this as a country, and, you know, it's so sad. You see the Democratic Party—they're imploding. They're imploding. They have no message; you see the head of the DNC, who is a total whack job; there's no leadership there. And so what do they do? They become obstructionists, because they have no message of their own; they have no solid candidates of their own; they lost the election that they should've won because they spent seven times the amount of money that my father spent. They have no message! So what do they try and do? They try and obstruct a great man; they try and obstruct his family; they come after us viciously—

HANNITY: Eric, I gotta tell ya something—

TRUMP: —and it's truly, truly horrible.

Wow.

So, there's a lot to unpack there, starting with the fact that 90 percent of it is projection, accusing opponents of Trump with precisely the lack of morality and coherent messaging that is plaguing his father's administration.

Then there's the issue that Eric Trump, who has repeatedly insisted there's a firewall between his father's administration and his father's business, over which he and his brother Don Jr. have ostensibly taken full control, is making a political defense in which he includes a resentful complaint about Democrats obstructing "a great man" and "his family."

Finally, and most importantly, there's Trump saying that opponents of his father's administration are "not even people." This is not just some innocuous hyperbole. This is the son of the president, in the middle of an appearance in which he has positioned himself as a spokesperson for the administration, saying that people who oppose the president aren't even human.

That is the rhetoric of despots.

And it has consequences. Here are just two things I pulled out of my mentions from the last 12 hours:

Eliminationist language is the inevitable result of casual dehumanization. When the president's son goes on television to say that people like me aren't human, eliminationism directed at me increases. And I am hardly alone.

This is deeply irresponsible and dangerous. Which, I regret to say, is precisely the fucking point.