距离美国中期选举仅剩三个月，特朗普祭出极具煽动性的全新攻击话术，将民主党人称作 “圣战分子”。
本周一，特朗普在白宫椭圆办公室接受记者采访时称：“如今到处都有圣战分子当选公职。” 他既没有指明自己指代何人，也未拿出任何证据支撑这一说法。
特朗普补充道：“无论是共产主义还是圣战极端主义，这类势力都在政坛扩张。”
此前特朗普长期将民主党及民主社会主义者扣上 “共产主义者” 的帽子，试图在 11 月大选前塑造民主党日趋极端的形象。但即便民主党内部最左翼的候选人，也和共产主义者相去甚远，这套说法完全不符合事实。
而此番把民主党称作 “圣战分子”，是其攻击口径的再度升级。特朗普本人也在采访中坦言，这个说法来自一位友人的建议：“我一位朋友打电话跟我说，你应该用‘圣战分子’这个词，眼下政坛现状就是如此。” 共和党一众政客近期也频频释放类似激进言论，刻意将穆斯林候选人塑造为反美群体。
特朗普举例称，他口中所谓的 “圣战分子” 候选人不少来自索马里这类国家。他多次公开批评明尼苏达州民主党联邦众议员伊尔汉・奥马尔：奥马尔出生于索马里，幼年随家人逃难赴美，如今已是归化美国公民。特朗普此前甚至扬言，要把奥马尔和另一位穆斯林女议员 “遣送回原籍”。
密歇根州民主党联邦参议员候选人阿卜杜勒・埃尔 - 赛义德也遭到特朗普愈发恶毒的攻击。上周特朗普在拉斯维加斯竞选活动中无端辱骂他满口谎言，称其仇视犹太人与以色列，全程没有提供任何佐证。穆斯林身份的埃尔 - 赛义德确实曾公开批评以色列政府政策。
周一，特朗普在个人社交平台真实社交发布一张配图：埃尔 - 赛义德与联邦参议员伊丽莎白・沃伦同框，沃伦头戴印第安传统头饰，配文写道：“‘风中奇缘’与阿卜杜勒想要夺走你们的财富、搞垮美国经济!”
上周末，特朗普还发布另一张对比图，左侧是他与第一夫人梅拉尼娅，右侧是埃尔 - 赛义德和头戴头巾的妻子萨拉・朱库库，配文：“两种截然不同的美国。”
埃尔 - 赛义德做客 CNN《国情咨文》栏目接受杰克・塔珀采访时表示，这两张图片确实代表两种完全不同的美国发展愿景。
“他说得没错。第一种愿景里，掌权者二人面和心不和，联手榨取民众财富、牟取巨额私利;另一种是真心相爱的夫妻，安稳吃着煎饼，一心打造包容的美国，让普通家庭安居乐业、拥有美好生活。这就是两种完全对立的美国道路。”
埃尔 - 赛义德还表示：“民主党内部虽存在合理政见分歧，但当下全党应当团结一心。”
不只是特朗普在用这类煽动性话术。埃尔 - 赛义德上周拿下民主党党内提名后，共和党全国阵营刻意反复称呼他完整全名 —— 阿卜杜勒拉赫曼・穆罕默德・埃尔 - 赛义德，刻意凸显其中东穆斯林身份。
此前特朗普还宣称民主党已被 “无神共产主义者” 掌控，会给美国带来生存危机。尽管民主社会主义思潮确实推动民主党整体向左倾斜，但民主社会主义乃至社会主义的核心主张，和特朗普反复歪曲渲染、视作重大威胁的共产主义意识形态有着天壤之别。
Trump tries new line of attack on Democrats, calling them ‘jihadists’
President Donald Trump said Monday that “jihadists” are being elected “all over the place” — trying a new, incendiary line of attack against Democrats with the midterm election just three months away.
“Well, the one thing is, we have jihadists being elected all over the place,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, without specifying who he was talking about or offering evidence of his claims.
“We have this whether it’s communism, jihadism,” Trump added.
The president has frequentlycast Democrats and democratic socialists as communists, looking to portray the party as increasingly extreme headed into November — even though portrayals of even the party’s most liberal candidates as communists are far from reality.
But calling them “jihadists” is a new escalation, which Trump acknowledged in his remarks Monday, recounting that a “friend of mine called up,” and told him, “’You know, really, you should use the word jihadist because that’s what’s happening.’” The president’s escalating rhetoric comes amid broad lines of attack from others in the GOP seeking to paint Muslim candidates as anti-American.
Trump said that, “as an example,” some of the candidates he termed “jihadist” are coming from countries like Somalia. The president has repeatedly criticized Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat who was born in Somalia, came to the United States as a child and is now a naturalized citizen. Trump has previously advocated for sending Omar and another Muslim congresswoman “back from where they came.”
He’s also unleashed increasingly provocative rhetoric against Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, saying at a campaign event in Las Vegas last week that he’s “full of sh*t” and is a “hater of Jews and hater of Israel,” without offering evidence. El-Sayed, who is Muslim, has been critical of the Israeli government.
On Monday, Trumppostedon Truth Social an image of El-Sayed with Sen. Elizabeth Warren in a Native American headdress, with the caption, “Pocahontas and ‘Abdul’ want to take your stuff, and Crash the Economy!!!” And over the weekend, Trump shared an image of himself and first lady Melania Trump alongside a photo of El-Sayed and his wife, Sarah Jukaku, who wears a hijab. The caption read: “Two very different America’s.”
In an interview on CNN’s Sate of the Union with Jake Tapper, El-Sayed agreed that the two images offered differing visions of America.
“Yeah, he’s right. One in which your overlords are two people who don’t like each other but joint in the interest of making billions of dollars off of you. Or, two people who genuinely love each other, enjoyed some pancakes together, want to come together to build the kind of America where they can raise a family and know that that family is going to have the good thing,” El-Sayed said. “So, yes, you got two different visions of America.”
El-Sayed: Democrats have 'good-faith differences... but this is the time for us to come together’
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And it’s not just Trump engaging in that sort of rhetoric. Shortly after El-Sayed won the Democratic nomination last week, national Republicans repeatedly startedreferring to him by his full name: Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed.
Previously, Trump has accused Democrats of being taken over by “godless Communists” who pose an existential threat to the country. And while the democratic socialist movement appears set to push the Democratic Party further to the left, the tenets ofsocialism— much less democratic socialism — are still far removed from the communist ideology that Trump has loudly, and inaccurately, portrayed as a rising threat.
