“They’re poisoning the blood of our country, that’s what they’ve done. They’ve poisoned mental institutions and prisons all over the world. Not just in South America, not just the three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world they’re coming into our country from Africa, from Asia…all over the world they’re pouring in.”
–—Presumptive GOP Presidential nominee Donald Trump during a rally in Durham, NH.
To its credit, C-Span introduced the clip of Trump blathering by noting he was talking about illegal immigrants, and I’m sure he was. However he never said “illegal immigrants” or anything similar. He just gave a number that could be illegal immigrants or just immigrants. “When they let 15, 16 million people into the country…we’ve got a lot of work to do,” he began. Wait, we “let” legal immigrants into the country: is Trump complaining about them?
The whole statement is so vague and garbled that it’s hard to know what he means. Who are “they”? Illegal immigrants in the U.S. are poisoning mental institutions and prisons “all over the world”? How? If they’re poisoning these institutions in South America, why should we care? Does he mean from South America? How does Trump know what “three or four countries” we “think about”? Then there’s “they” again. Is Trump saying we don’t want legal immigrants from Africa and Asia? All of Africa and Asia? Is he saying that Africans and Asians “poison the blood of the country”? How?
I don’t know what the hell he was trying to say, but if his intention was to give ammunition to those who want to link him to racism and white supremacy, Trump couldn’t have done a better job of it. Handed this gift, the mainstream media immediately, as usual, avoided any sense that Trump was probably talking about illegal immigration and went right to the “poisoning the blood of our country” line. I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean either. The problem with illegal immigration is that it’s illegal, and that the United States isn’t managing and controlling who has access to our sovereign territory and the benefits of living here. It has nothing to do with “blood.”
The Biden campaign quickly accused Trump of “parroting Adolf Hitler” . Of course they did. His words can fairly be interpreted as a condemnation of the “mongrelization” of the white race, in the memorable words of a KKK Grand Dragon. That guy meant exactly what he said. I don’t think that’s what Trump means, but who knows?
We do know, however, that his reckless, sloppy, inflammatory, stupid rhetoric fuels the “Trump is a dangerous dictator” trope, and when he makes statements like the “poison the blood of the country” line, he deserves what he gets.
Ethics Alarms 
I agree with your analysis as I stated in the follow up to your response to me in the prior post.
It should be pointed out that the Biden administration uses the term MAGA republicans as shorthand for undesirables or those poisoning the left’s utopian paradise so he too parrots a despotic authoritarian.
I see little difference in the rhetoric.
Ben Shapiro of The Daily Wire tried to dissect this piece of the speech, claiming that the antecedent for the poisoning the blood of our country is the Democrats’ open border policy, not the illegal immigrants.
I don’t know that I agree with Mr Shapiro’s interpretation, but I don’t know that I disagree.
“You know when they let – I think the real number is 15, 16 million people – into our country, when they do that, we got a lot of work to do. They’re poisoning the blood of our country. That’s what they’ve done.”
I think Trump makes controversial statements for the purpose of spinning up the AUC for his own amusement. I don’t know if Trump will return to Twitter/X, but because he can’t stop himself from making such reckless comments, I hope he sticks to Truth Social.