Biden Accuses Former President of Courting Violence After Ominous Ohio Remarks
COLUMBUS, Ohio – A single word uttered by Donald Trump at a weekend rally in this critical battleground state threatened to plunge the already incendiary 2024 presidential campaign into dangerous new territory.
“Bloodbath.”
That blunt, foreboding warning from the former president about what may happen if he isn’t victorious set off thunderous alarm bells – igniting bipartisan outrage, stoking fears of impending violence, and plunging America’s democratic tradition into a vortex of deepening uncertainty.
In a scorching response, President Joe Biden’s re-election team accused Trump of “wanting another January 6th” after the twice-impeached defeated incumbent essentially prophesied a societal apocalypse should voters reject his White House comeback bid.
This is who Donald Trump is: a loser who gets beat by over 7 million votes and then, instead of appealing to a wider mainstream audience, doubles down on his threats of political violence,” the Biden campaign fumed.
Even for Trump – the most polarizing, inflammatory figure in modern American politics – the ominous “bloodbath” prediction represented a shocking new escalation in his reckless, apocalyptic rhetoric. Coming from the man whose relentless lies about voter fraud culminated in the Jan. 6 insurrection, the apparent call for upheaval carried profound implications.
Experts say Trump’s vague language was likely deliberate, allowing his most extreme followers to take the comments however they wish – as a harbinger of actual bloodshed or mere economic turmoil. By not clarifying his intentions, the former president continued exhibiting the same disturbing pattern of edgy statements that have turbocharged right-wing extremism.
“When he uses a word like that, he’s striking a match and throwing it on the tinder,” warned Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. “There are people who will understand exactly what he means.”
Trump’s team, of course, insisted he was merely using a metaphor to describe the economic calamity awaiting America if his opponent prevails. They framed the “bloodbath” comment as a warning about tariffs they claim Biden would levy against imported foreign cars, decimating the U.S. auto industry.
“Biden’s policies will create an economic bloodbath for the auto industry and auto workers,” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung told The Washington Post, seeking to tamp down the furor.
Senior campaign adviser Jason Miller amplified that argument on social media: “Crooked Joe Biden’s Insane EV Mandate will slaughter the American auto industry. So many jobs killed!”
A Long Pattern of Provocation
Whether Trump’s “bloodbath” blast was hypothetical or literal, it undoubtedly tapped into the deepest wellsprings of American division and disunity his turbulent political career has exacerbated.
The former president has long engaged in a pattern of provocative statements widely perceived as giving succor and inspiration to white supremacist groups, anti-government militias and other fringe elements who have increasingly embraced political violence.
At that very same Ohio rally where Trump predicted hellish consequences from an electoral setback, he amplified his frequently deplorable rhetoric toward undocumented immigrants. The ex-president escalated his xenophobic attacks to new disturbing depths by dehumanizing entire populations.
“I don’t know if you call them people,” Trump said of migrants who’ve entered the U.S. illegally. “In some cases, they’re not people, in my opinion.”
The crowd roared in apparent approval at the dehumanizing insult.
Trump went on to seize on the recent murder of a Georgia college student to demonize all undocumented immigrants as criminal threats, obliterating any sense of human dignity or nuance.
“The Republican party, we believe that Laken [Riley’s] killer is an illegal alien criminal,” he sneered, invoking the brutal slaying.
While extending condolences to Riley’s family, President Biden has pushed back forcefully against Trump’s grossly reductive fear-mongering over desperate migrants fleeing poverty and oppression.
In his State of the Union address, Biden reiterated his call for compromise immigration reform – which has been stymied repeatedly by partisan gridlock in Washington. He indirectly blamed Trump for scuttling past legislative efforts, further inflaming the contentious debate.
“I’m told my predecessor called members of Congress in the Senate to demand they block the bill,” Biden said, without uttering Trump’s name.
Escalating Clash Over 2024 Stakes
The former president’s latest repugnant remarks represented a dramatic escalation in his relentless campaign to portray the entire democratic system as corrupt and illegitimate – unless he wins.
In the final weeks of his 2020 re-election bid, Trump began laying the groundwork to dispute any potential loss by declaring the entire process “rigged” well before voting had concluded. He’s since doubled, tripled and quadrupled down on his shameless voter fraud lies.
At a recent Iowa rally where he reprised his tired false narratives of fraud and irregularities, Trump shockingly vowed to pardon anyone charged with crimes relating to the Jan. 6 Capitol riots if he reclaims the presidency.
“If I run and I win, we will treat those people from January 6th fairly,” Trump brazenly declared to thunderous cheers. “And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons.”
Hundreds have already been convicted on charges ranging from assaulting police officers to seditious conspiracy for their roles in the unprecedented attacks aimed at preventing Congress from certifying Biden’s electoral victory. Five lives were lost amid the chaos, property damage stretched into the millions, and American democracy itself was shaken to its core.
By promising to absolve the perpetrators if he returns to power, Trump unmistakably signaled that he would enable and even expect a rerun of the political bloodletting last time if the results don’t go his way in 2024.
It marked yet another instance of the former president perilously courting the prospect of civil conflagration and unrest to achieve his aims – the exact fear raised by Biden’s team after his apocalyptic “bloodbath” comments over the weekend.
Ominous Signs for 2024
While Republicans largely condemned the violence of Jan. 6 in its immediate wake, many have since downplayed its severity or sought to shift blame in service to Trump’s lies about electoral fraud.
That cowardly deference to the former president’s anti-democratic impulses raises chilling possibilities for how far the GOP institutionally will indulge him next time – especially if the 2024 outcome is contested as narrow vote margins are disputed and unfounded conspiracy theories whipped into frenzies.
Some top Republican contenders like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have already begun parroting Trump’s baseless “stolen election” rhetoric, giving it increased legitimacy among the far-right fringes.
That radicalizing feedback loop, further fueled by social media misinformation, could produce disastrous consequences in an already dangerously overheated political environment. And Trump’s incendiary missives from the stump – including his ominous Ohio “bloodbath” prophecy – only stoke those smoldering embers of unrest.
“What does he mean by bloodbath? Does he mean street violence? Is he using воzу language to incite вor rally his troops?” wondered John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser turned vocal critic. “When someone in his position uses language like that after the experience of what we went through on January 6th, you have to take it very seriously.”
While the former president’s most ardent supporters dismiss such concerns as hysterical overreaction, history has shown how rapidly political instability can descend into mass unrest and societal fracturing when tensions are left to fester.
Whether Trump intended to imply impending violence with his “bloodbath” outcry remains ambiguous. What is clear is that instead of dialing back his typically combustible language on the heels of the Jan. 6 Capitol siege, the former president has only escalated his reckless, anti-democratic rhetoric as he tries clawing his way back to power.
As the hard-fought 2024 contest kicks into high gear, all eyes will be on whether Trump’s divisive demagoguery grows even more disturbing – bringing an American political tradition of peaceful democratic transition, once a global model, crashing down into chaos.
