Former US President Donald Trump received harsh criticism for calling political opponents “worms”. US President Joe Biden’s campaign team today accused the Republican of “emulating the autocratic language of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini”.
Many American soldiers lost their lives fighting against these two “dictators” in World War II, said Biden campaign spokesman Ammar Moussa. The soldiers fought to “defeat the anti-American ideas that Trump now defends.”
“Horribly recognizable”
A White House spokesperson also condemned Trump’s “worms” comment. Such a term would have been “terribly recognizable” to the soldiers who donned the U.S. uniform in the 1940s.
Trump gave a speech at a campaign event in New Hampshire on Saturday. He said: “We will eradicate the communists, Marxists, fascists and radical left-wing gangsters who live like vermin on our country’s borders, who lie, steal and cheat in elections and who will do everything in their power – legal or illegal.” – to destroy America and destroy the American dream.”
The English word “vermin” can be translated as “worm”, “pest”, “parasite” or “pack”. Following Trump’s comments, experts recalled that such terms were used by National Socialists in Germany to dehumanize Jews.
Trump’s campaign team responded to criticism that those who made such historical comparisons would have their “sad, miserable existence crushed if President Trump returned to the White House.”