Trump’s violent language against electric vehicles

Former President Donald J. Trump says his recent warning of a “bloodbath” if he is not elected president in November was made in the context of electric vehicles and that he was not talking about political violence in general.

But if it seems strange to some to discuss a type of automotive technology in bloody terms, it fits with the increasingly brutal language Mr. Trump has applied to electric vehicles, one of his favorite foils.

He has long claimed that electric cars will “kill” the American auto industry. He has called them a “murder” of jobs. He has stated that the Biden administration has “made a big push for manufacturing in Michigan” by encouraging sales of electric cars.

And on Saturday, after ticking off a litany of false claims about electric vehicles, he talked about imposing a “100 percent tariff” on cars produced in Mexico but imported into the United States. “And you’re not going to be able to sell those cars,” he said. “If I get elected. If I am not elected, it will be a bloodbath for the whole. That will be the least of it. It will be a bloodbath for the country, to say the least. But they’re not going to sell those cars.”

Edward W. Maibach, director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, says Trump uses graphic language to agitate his crowd.

“Donald Trump is a master of concrete language,” he said. “The term ‘massacre’ is nothing if not concrete. Strong emotions are a great way to unite the base,” he said. Other political speech experts say they believe Trump is normalizing violence by covering the anti-electric vehicle screed with promises of a “bloodbath” if he loses the election.

Jennifer Mercieca, author of “Demagogue for President: Donald Trump’s Rhetorical Genius,” noted that in his weekend speech, Mr. Trump transitioned from complaining about the inability of the United Auto Workers to support him, to making claims about the auto manufacturing industry leaving the United States for Mexico, to the carnage commentary and then back to the automotive industry. sale.

“Because his speech was so incoherent, it is difficult to know whether he was threatening UAW workers, American automakers or the nation as a whole,” Ms. Mercieca said. But she added: “In a sense it doesn’t matter because Trump threatened in one fell swoop.”

Ms. Mercieca, a communications lecturer at Texas A&M University, called Trump’s rhetoric an “ad baculum” strategy, using threats of violence or intimidation to coerce behavior.

“Trump paints a bleak picture of the nation and threatens economic ruin if he doesn’t take charge,” she said. “The use of threats of force to gain power over a nation is authoritarian,” she added, “not democratic.”